Former NSW MP Ernest Wong has accepted he told someone a table at a Labor fundraiser hosting Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo was sold for $100,000, after initially denying it at an anti-corruption inquiry.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption is examining whether Mr Huang, who is now banned from Australia, was the true source of $100,000 said to be donated by 12 people from a 2015 Chinese Friends of Labor dinner.
As a property developer, Mr Huang was prohibited by law from making donations to NSW political parties.
Mr Wong – who at the time was an upper house MP – was the patron of CFL.
He was repeatedly asked on Friday if he denied telling anyone that the head table for the event had been taken for $100,000.
Mr Huang said he denied doing so on the condition that it was his best memory.
He then accepted, after being presented with an email, that he’d told someone the table had gone for $100,000 – but said he just wrote that because he didn’t want the email recipient to take the table.
“I did not sell seats on the head table,” he said.
Mr Wong accepted that he’d prepared a budget in connection with the event that contemplated that the income received from the head table would be $100,000.
He denied having lied during his evidence.
The inquiry previously heard during counsel assisting’s opening address that Mr Huang sat at the head table with then state and federal leaders Bill Shorten and Luke Foley.
There’s no suggestion Mr Shorten and Mr Foley had any involvement in the conduct under investigation.
The inquiry continues.
-AAP
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