A Liberal Party factional warrior who co-founded a Christian bloc says it wanted to recruit more conservatives by eliminating moderates like Malcolm Turnbull.
The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption is investigating alleged illicit political donations and branch-stacking, spearheaded by the Reformers, a conservative Christian faction among the NSW Liberals.
Robert Assaf appeared at the probe on Thursday after revelations of a dirt file on former NSW police minister David Elliott were aired.
But he vehemently denied the group he co-founded had bypassed electoral funding laws, despite setting up a Westpac bank account with $35,000 collected from 2019 to 2022.
"Broadly I knew laws like that existed. My read on it would have been 'don’t take money from property developers'," Mr Assaf told counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer.
Property developers as well as gambling and liquor proprietors have been prohibited as political donors in NSW since 2009.
"We just didn't think the law applied to us ... because it was an electoral law and we're not campaigning in elections in that sense," Mr Assaf said.
"We're (focused on) internal Liberal Party machinations."
Prominent players in the Reformers bloc included two brothers of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet.
Mr Assaf knew Jean-Claude Perrottet through an Opus Dei-run study centre at Redfield College in northwest Sydney.
The Catholic school is in the same local government area, the Hills Shire, where allegations of branch-stacking to benefit the business interests of fugitive property developer Jean Nassif are being investigated.
Mr Assaf mentioned several events his group organised attended by right-wing media figures such as Alan Jones and Miranda Devine, as well as efforts to bring down moderate Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
He recalled a barbecue in 2018, at the home of current senior Liberal MP Damien Tudehope, geared towards "whacking Turnbull" for not being conservative enough.
The now-lobbyist said he was driven by biblical values and found a vehicle to influence political change, chiefly opposition to gay marriage, culminating in co-founding the Reformers.
Under questioning from Dr Dwyer, he likened the factional infighting to epic war film Braveheart.
"The right faction was like, not sure if you've seen Braveheart, but these warring kingdoms, they would slaughter each other and then every now and then they'd come together for a big fight," Mr Assaf said.
"We wanted people to be loyal to policies, not personality."
The 30-year-old, who spent a year in a Catholic seminary training to be a priest, rose through the ranks of the party working as a staffer for several ministers, eventually being hired by former prime minister Tony Abbott.
Mr Abbott was voted in as federal party president in May.
Mr Assaf's testimony comes after claims by former NSW Catholic Schools boss Dallas McInerney that now-federal Liberal leader Angus Taylor agreed to make a series of payments to the Reformers.
Mr Taylor, who is not under investigation by the corruption watchdog, has denied making donations to the ultra-conservative faction.
"I want to shake down Angus for 10K," Mr McInerney wrote to Mr Assaf in a message aired at the inquiry on Tuesday.
The opposition leader said "no payment was made" when questioned about a $15,000 "injection" and monthly $3000 donations to the Reformers, as claimed in a text message by former Liberal Party staffer Dylan Whitelaw.
