Sinodinos included on slush fund email trail

[Redneck]

It certainly sounds dodgy according to this report.


Liberal Party donations: Arthur Sinodinos included on slush fund email trail
Adam Gartrell March 26 2016 - 6:36PM


Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos was copied into a series of emails in which party officials boasted about a large property developer donation being paid into the secretive slush fund at the centre of a political storm.

There are calls for the Senator to step down after questions were raised about the source of millions of dollars of donations to the NSW Liberal Party. Courtesy ABC News24.

While the emails do not demonstrate any wrongdoing because they relate to donations for the 2010 federal campaign rather than a NSW campaign, they show that Senator Sinodinos was exposed to the party's practice of channelling property developer donations through the Free Enterprise Foundation.

Senator Sinodinos, who is cabinet secretary and a close confidante of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, is under a cloud after a damning NSW Electoral Commission report in response to the Independent Commission Against Corruption's Operation Spicer investigation into prohibited donations.


The electoral commission is withholding $4.4 million in public funding from the NSW Liberal Party until it reveals who made $693,000 worth of donations that came via the FEF and helped bankroll its successful 2011 campaign. The commission concluded the FEF was used to "channel and disguise" prohibited donations.

While Senator Sinodinos maintains he has done nothing wrong, Labor is calling for him to stand aside.

In the July 2010 emails, chief fund-raiser Paul Nicolaou tells party figures Michael Yabsley, Brian Loughnane, Simon McInnes and Mark Neeham – as well as Sinodinos, then honorary treasurer and finance director – that Meriton Apartments developer Harry Triguboff had donated $50,000 into the FEF.

In the emails, first made public as part of the ICAC hearings, Mr Nicolaou said 50 per cent would go to the "national federal campaign" and 50 per cent to the "NSW federal campaign".

Mr Yabsley responded: "That's great news in relation to Harry. We will show this as a confirmed pledge for $25k."

The men also discuss $250,000 in donations from Brickworks' Lindsay Partridge – $100,000 for the federal division and $50,000 each for NSW, Queensland and WA for "their respective federal campaigns".

While it is illegal for NSW political parties to take property developer donations for state campaigns the rules for federal campaigns are not so strict. Property developer money can be used by the NSW branch for federal campaigns.

Senator Sinodinos has hit back at suggestions he knew the FEF was being used to disguise any payments in NSW.

In a letter sent to the electoral commission on Friday, Senator Sinodinos' lawyers said any such conclusion was "manifestly wrong". They have called on the commission to retract all references to him from its publications and publish a correction.

"People within the Liberal Party, including Senator Sinodinos but by no means limited to him, went to great lengths to ensure that the NSW Division understood and complied with the law," the letter said.

In a follow-up statement on Saturday, Senator Sinodinos slammed the commission for the "loose language" that had created "erroneous impressions" about his involvement with the FEF.

"I have never been accused of corruption," he said. "I deny any wrongdoing or illegality."

He goes on to say he will not be responding to the publication of "unsubstantiated rumours, gossip or scuttlebutt".

However, he declined to comment about the emails revealed by the ICAC.

Labor frontbencher Jason Clare said Senator Sinodinos was hanging by a thread.

"If these people were illegally donating to the Liberal Party when Arthur Sinodinos was in charge of the money then his position really becomes untenable. Malcolm Turnbull has had to sack three ministers already, now I think he is going to have to sack his right-hand man as well," he said.

Senator Sinodinos, a former chairman of infrastructure company Australian Water Holdings, was called as a witness during the ICAC's inquiry into the company in 2014. He is not expected to face corruption findings but may face critical comments about his time as non-executive chairman of the company.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal ... nrist.html

[mantra]

Sinodinos is as slippery as an eel. Howard taught him well. He doesn't know anything, because he hasn't seen anything because no-one has told him anything. This is a bloke who supposedly has been a financial advisor to the Liberal party for decades, but knows nothing about how the party finances are collected. Same goes for Australian Water Holdings. As Chairman - Sinodinos had his blindfold on and his earplugs in so of course he didn't know about any corruption. Turnbull's confidence in him makes both of them look sleazy. Turnbull needs to get rid of him. Sinodinos makes Shorten look respectable.

[Rorschach]

Bit early in the day to start on the Howard Hating again isn't it mantra.

Howard taught him well.