Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo offered to deliver ‘big bag’ of cash to Australian party HQ, inquiry hears

Huang was in February stripped of his Australian residency and barred from returning to the country after his Communist Party ties came under scrutiny

He had been at the centre of several political interference concerns, having donated millions to Australia’s two main political parties

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Huang Xiangmo (left) with Malcolm Turnbull at the 2016 Lunar New Year Lantern Festival. Photo: ACPPRC

Published: 1:31pm, 2 Sep 2019Updated: 10:43pm, 2 Sep 2019

Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo allegedly offered to deliver a bag containing A$100,000 (US$67,300) to the state headquarters of an Australian political party after a 2015 fundraising event, a corruption inquiry has heard.

Huang was in February stripped of his Australian residency and barred from returning to the country after his Communist Party ties came under scrutiny. He had been at the centre of several political interference concerns, having donated millions to Australia’s two main political parties and been photographed with key figures.

Former state Labor MP, Ernest Wong, on Monday told a corruption inquiry in Sydney he was not surprised Huang offered to act as a “delivery man” by offering to take a “big bag” of other people’s cash to the party’s headquarters following the 2015 event.

However, Wong’s evidence about the way he handled significant volumes of cash prompted accusations that he is “making all this up as you go along”.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) is examining whether Huang funnelled A$100,000 in cash to NSW Labor in breach of state laws barring property developers from donating to political parties. Icac has been particularly focused on a Chinese Friends of Labor fundraising dinner held shortly before the 2015 state election, and previous evidence claimed a series of straw donors, or fake donors, may have been used to mask the origins of Huang’s money.

Icac has heard Huang turned up at the Labor head office several weeks after the dinner with a cash-filled Aldi shopping bag, which he handed to then general secretary, Jamie Clements.

Wong, an upper house MP until earlier this year, was one of those who helped organise the 2015 dinner. Wong denies Huang contributed any money. Instead, he suggested on Monday that Huang had offered near the end of the dinner to take the bag of cash to Labor headquarters.

Wong, who was born in Hong Kong, said the money had been donated by others, but that Huang was planning to visit Clements anyway, and offered to take the money with him.