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![WITNESSES: At left, Neil Slater leaves ICAC. Others who appeared yesterday were, from left Tracy McKelligott, Rolly de With, and Nick Dan. Pictures: Peter Rae WITNESSES: At left, Neil Slater leaves ICAC. Others who appeared yesterday were, from left Tracy McKelligott, Rolly de With, and Nick Dan. Pictures: Peter Rae](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/storypad-3ZMaZUzN3dKuM6vrzTJmtN/3f4bf4a0-074b-4ec7-92f8-145ee34682db.JPG/r0_0_2048_1151_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A GROUP of ‘‘influential’’ city businessmen who call themselves ‘‘Club 6.5’’ and a Nathan Tinkler company funded a Liberal Party-designed campaign run through the Newcastle Alliance urging residents to change their votes, a corruption inquiry has heard.
Details of the city’s networking cliques were aired yesterday at the Independent Commission Against Corruption, with Club 6.5 described as a ‘‘junior’’ offshoot fashioned on the ‘‘legendary’’ Club 13 that started in the early 1990s and was made up of some of the city’s wealthiest residents.
But for the 2011 state election, Club 6.5’s members did more than just enjoy their usual breakfast at the Newcastle Business Club once a month on a Tuesday morning.
Bank records tendered to the inquiry show ‘‘6.5’’ made two payments of $10,000 into the Newcastle Alliance’s accounts in March 2011 for the FedUp! campaign, within a few days of Mr Tinkler’s entity Serene Lodge depositing $50,000.
The ‘‘anti-Labor’’ campaign entailed extensive advertisements advocating for change, including an aeroplane banner flown over the city.
But at least two Alliance board members told the inquiry yesterday that the endorsement of the board was never sought by some of their own colleagues.
Instead, then Alliance boss and businessman Paul Murphy and members, hotelier Rolly de With and restaurateur Neil Slater, are alleged to have worked with Buildev and Tim Owen’s campaign team to secretly mount the advertising blitz on behalf of the Alliance, at a time when sitting Labor MP Jodi McKay was publicly critical of Mr Tinkler’s plans for a billion-dollar coal-loader at Mayfield.
Mr de With, also the Newcastle spokesman for the Australian Hotels Association, was further accused of discussing with Mr Owen’s campaign manager Hugh Thomson the interests of his industry that, as Mr Thomson wrote in an email to him, ‘‘Tim and I will take up with the relevant people and see what can be achieved’’.
Giving evidence, PR businesswoman and then Alliance deputy chairwoman Tracy McKelligott said the board had endorsed on March 3, 2011, running a separate ‘‘vote for real change’’ campaign with the aim of making Newcastle a marginal seat.
Her agency, Eclipse Media, placed the ads within the budget of $29,000.
She was ‘‘hurt, shocked and disappointed’’ when she later learnt, from a Newcastle Herald journalist, that the Alliance had declared spending $60,000 on a third-party campaign for the election.
The Election Funding Authority declaration lists the $29,000 for Ms McKelligott’s agency, and further advertising spending through two other firms.
She also knew nothing of $70,000 in donations listed in the Alliance’s 2011 financial report, lamenting: ‘‘I should have asked at the time, I should have looked more carefully.’’
The ‘‘donations’’ were the $20,000 from 6.5 and $50,000 from Mr Tinkler’s entity.
‘‘But was it ever raised at board level that there was $70,000?’’ junior counsel assisting the inquiry Greg O’Mahoney asked.
‘‘That we had $70,000 worth of donations, no,’’ Ms McKelligott replied.
‘‘That’s extraordinary isn’t it?’’ Mr O’Mahoney said.
‘‘Yeah, extraordinary, [I] agree, that none of us paid attention to that either,’’ Ms McKelligott said.
Asked of ‘‘6.5’’, Ms McKelligott said she didn’t know what it was but ‘‘by a process of deduction I worked out that that must be half of Club 13’’.
‘‘You say that as if it’s a household name?’’ Mr O’Mahoney said.
‘‘It is in Newcastle,’’ Ms McKelligott said.
The men would have coffee and discuss city issues but ‘‘what they did I don’t know because I’m not a male and I’m not part of Club 13’’, she said.
Mr Slater, owner of Scratchleys restaurant and a 25 per cent shareholder in a hotel, a member of 6.5, described it as a ‘‘looser’’ group than the Alliance, involving ‘‘about 20 guys’’ who were interested in what was happening in Newcastle; ‘‘a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker sort of [group] all from different backgrounds’’.
They were a younger version of Club 13, who ‘‘are pretty old now and I don’t think ... they’d meet [for] anything other than to have a beer and remember the good old days’’.
Of his and the club’s involvement with FedUp!, Mr Slater said he had attended a meeting at Mezzanine Media, the consultants working for Mr Owen’s campaign.
The company came up with the FedUp! idea but Mr Owen’s team decided not to run it on behalf of the Liberal Party.
Also in attendance were Mr de With, both a Club 6.5 and Alliance member, Mr Murphy, Mr Owen, Mr Thomson and Owen media coordinator Luke Grant.
After the meeting, most Club 6.5 members agreed to chip in $1250 each towards the cost of FedUp!.
He said he was unaware at the time of laws prohibiting donations from hoteliers and developers, and did not recall knowing that Buildev, part owned by Mr Tinkler, was also funding FedUp! at the time.
Mr de With, who was the treasurer of the Alliance told the inquiry he thought the other Alliance board knew of the organisation’s links to FedUp! but admitted no information was put to the board.
He denied Buildev had funded the campaign, despite being shown a text message Mr Thomson had sent him on March 11 advising ‘‘Darren’s just offered another 50k’’, referring to Buildev director Darren Williams.
‘‘Why is he sending you that message, Mr de With?’’ counsel assisting the inquiry Geoffrey Watson SC asked.
‘‘I don’t know why he’d offered another 50,’’ Mr de With replied.
The inquiry was also shown Mr Thomson’s email to Mr de With, arranging a meeting to discuss the FedUp! concept.
It concluded: ‘‘As discussed if you have any position statement or something similar about what you would like to see achieved in your industry, Tim and I will take that up with the relevant people and see what can be achieved’’.
Mr de With told the inquiry said no such discussion occurred.
‘‘Well, see, I guess an ordinary reader would look at that and see that in return for you supporting Fed Up, you were going to get a favour from Mr Owen. Do you see that?’’ Mr Watson said.
‘‘That’s not the case,’’ Mr de With replied.
Fellow Alliance board member and solicitor Nick Dan, who was absent from the March 3 board meeting, told the inquiry he knew nothing of the FedUp! arrangements.
Mr Dan also acknowledged he had acted as a solicitor for Ann Wills, who came to him in 2011 after the election to allegedly confess ‘‘Nick I’ve done something silly’’.
The former Labor staffer-turned-political strategist and Buildev consultant told Mr Dan she had been involved in the ‘‘Stop Jodi’s Trucks’’ anonymous pamphlets that targeted Newcastle MP Ms McKay shortly before the March poll over her support for a container terminal project that rivalled Mr Tinkler’s coal-loader plan.
Police had tracked down the pamphlets to ‘‘Joe Tripodi’s printer’’ and the pamphlets were paid for by Nathan Tinkler, she allegedly told him.
Mr Dan said he talked to Newcastle police because Ms Wills didn’t believe she’d breached electoral laws.
The inquiry is continuing.