An expanding group of Liberals say the position of federal Liberal president Tony Abbott is “untenable” as a New South Wales corruption inquiry probes allegations of a $2 million far right-wing Christian conspiracy to take over the party.
The former prime minister stunned Liberal colleagues this week by using an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald to diminish the ongoing work of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and justify the dealings of the Opus Dei-associated Reformers sub-faction that the ICAC is investigating as part of Operation Rosny.
The source said Abbott was attempting to undermine the ICAC, but he was also signalling a warning to the Murdoch press not to cover the investigation with too much prominence.
“He’s signalling to right-wing media like The [Daily] Telegraph and The Australian and others to not report on it – and they’re reporting very little on it – by saying that he’s not going to validate it,” the moderate MP says
The first weeks of the Rosny hearings – including intercepted phone calls, messages, emails, metadata and rat emojis – have exposed the internecine war within the Liberals and drawn in senior figures such as Angus Taylor, Abbott, the late former Liberal figure Teena McQueen and Tudehope.
There are allegations of a promised $2 million in illegal, concealed political donations from fugitive property developer Jean Nassif, and the painting of key Reformers Jean-Claude Perrottet, Robert Assaf and Christian Ellis as obsessively believing they were doing God’s work to shift the party to a conservative Christian stance.
The Reformers had a four-year target to bring in 5000 new Christian conservative Liberal members and take over control of the Liberal state executive. At the same time, they allegedly attempted to oust the centre-right powerbroker Alex Hawke in the seat of Mitchell and moderate Julian Leeser in Berowra.
In an interview with The Australian last month Abbott called the ICAC an “activist agency”, and in this week’s interview he appeared to question the commission’s judgement and take a side on the issue of corruption.
The inquiry heard about the make-up and influence of a shadowy hard-right leadership forum known as RELM, or Right Elected Leadership Meeting.
Source: Exclusive: Tony Abbott’s ICAC comments a ‘warning’ to News Corp | The Saturday Paper