Former NSW Labor boss Jamie Clements travelled on a private plane organised on behalf of Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo when he was general secretary of the state party, an anti-corruption inquiry has heard.
Mr Huang's former executive assistant Tim Xu told the Independent Commission Against Corruption that Mr Clements used the plane for "probably meetings and sometimes entertainment, sometimes a tennis match".
Mr Xu returned to the witness box on Monday as the ICAC inquiry examines whether $100,000 purportedly given by 12 donors at a March 2015 Chinese Friends of Labor dinner was actually donated by Mr Huang.
As a property developer, Mr Huang was banned from making donations to NSW political parties.
The inquiry previously heard that Mr Clements, Mr Huang and Mr Xu met at Labor's Sydney headquarters on April 7, 2015.
Mr Clements has told the inquiry Mr Huang and Mr Xu visited because Mr Huang - who he believed wanted "proximity to power" - hoped to arrange a meeting with then-federal opposition leader Bill Shorten.
Two days after the meeting, Labor banked $100,000 in cash raised at the CFL dinner.
Mr Xu on Monday said Mr Huang possibly discussed meeting Mr Shorten and an upcoming visit by a Chinese delegation during the April meeting, which he believed to be the billionaire's first with Mr Clements.
Mr Xu agreed, in response to questions from ICAC Chief Commissioner Peter Hall QC, said a social relationship between Mr Huang and Mr Clements had developed fairly quickly after the initial April 7 meeting.
He was later present at a meeting involving Mr Huang and Mr Shorten at a restaurant, the inquiry heard.
In May, he was contacting Mr Clements about the Victorian premier meeting with the Chinese delegation, and about whether the Victorian government could sign a "strategic partnership" in a friendly gesture to the delegation.
Mr Xu denied that during a meeting with Mr Clements about May 2015, he gave him an envelope containing about $10,000 in cash.
"Is it possible that you've given to Mr Clements an envelope, the contents of which you are not aware but may well have included cash or something else?," counsel assisting the commission Scott Robertson asked.
"It's possible."
Mr Robertson asked: "Similarly, it's possible, that on the 7th of April 2015, Mr Huang gave a gift to Mr Clements, correct?"
Mr Xu agreed but said he didn't remember ever seeing a gift being handed to Mr Clements or the former NSW Labor boss opening a gift in his presence.
He told the inquiry Mr Clements travelled on a private plane organised on Mr Huang's behalf about July 2015, and it happened on "possibly more than one occasion".
"So there were occasions, while you were executive assistant and while Mr Clements was the general secretary of the Labor party, that he had access to a private plane to travel somewhere for meetings but also for social events as well," Mr Robertson asked.
"Yes," Mr Xu replied.
He said his discomfort over Mr Huang's approach to business and politics was part of the reason why he left his employ.
Mr Clements has denied accepting $100,000 cash as the cost of arranging the meeting with Mr Shorten or that he used the introduction as a ruse to acquire the cash.
The inquiry continues.
Australian Associated Press
