Lobbying firm created fake admin 'Jessica' in alleged donation scheme, ICAC hears

Jeremy Greenwood sat across from counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer at the Independent Commission Against Corruption's inquiry on Tuesday, and when she asked him about correspondence signed "Kind regards, Jessica," something in the room shifted. Jessica, it turned out, was not a person. She was a fiction—a fake administrative assistant created by Greenwood's business partner, Christian Ellis, at their lobbying firm Beckington. "He just thought it was funny," Greenwood offered. Dwyer was not amused.

The inquiry, Operation Rosny, is examining whether a Christian Liberal factional group called the Reformers—advocates for more conservative positions on same-sex marriage, abortion, and euthanasia—solicited or accepted prohibited donations to fund branch stacking, the practice of recruiting or renewing party members for factional advantage. Beckington, registered as a lobbying company and founded by Greenwood and Ellis in 2019, sits at the center of the investigation. Authorities believe the firm accepted payments through fake invoices from Michael O'Hara, a prohibited donor, and from Catholic Schools NSW, then funneled the money into Reformers recruitment work. Greenwood has maintained he cannot recall either arrangement.

The Jessica correspondence was addressed to Catholic Schools NSW in 2020, complete with invoices bearing that fabricated signature. When pressed on what the payments were for, Greenwood acknowledged the company had made disbursements to Jean-Claude Perrottet, the younger brother of former New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet. Under questioning, he admitted to a $12,000 payment. Dwyer suggested the money was compensation for Reformers recruitment work. Greenwood's explanation was personal: "I didn't care about the recruitment work. I felt for him. He wanted to get married. He didn't have a job."

Yet the evidence suggested a different picture. An invoice showed Jean-Claude Perrottet billing Beckington $5,500 for consulting fees. When Dwyer pressed Greenwood repeatedly on whether Perrottet had actually performed any consulting work for the company, Greenwood retreated into uncertainty: "To the best of my knowledge," he said, he was not aware of any such work. The contradiction hung in the air—money paid for services apparently never rendered, or rendered without Greenwood's knowledge of what they entailed.

Ellis, Greenwood's co-founder, has relocated to the United Kingdom and declined to give oral evidence, though Greenwood insisted on Monday that his friend wanted to testify. On Tuesday, the inquiry heard that Ellis had called Greenwood at 6 a.m. via the encrypted messaging app Signal, asking about the reaction to his stated willingness to appear. The early-morning call and the choice of encrypted communication added another layer of opacity to the proceedings.

Greenwood's credibility faced sustained pressure. In a compulsory examination before the public hearings, he had stated he had not heard of Michael O'Hara before the ICAC inquiry was announced. On Tuesday, he admitted to first hearing O'Hara's name in 2019 or 2020. His explanation: the compulsory examination had taken place immediately after he returned from a trip to the United Kingdom in June, where he had met with Ellis at least four times. The men had been drinking throughout those meetings—at pubs from midday to 9 p.m. on his days off from a conference. Memory, he suggested, was unreliable under those conditions.

Greenwood is named in two of ICAC's allegations, yet he has repeatedly denied membership in the Reformers. On Monday he said there was not a "shred of evidence" of his involvement. On Tuesday, he argued that "hearing things when you're having a beer at a pub is not actively engaging" in the group's work. When confronted with messages showing he had been privy to and had responded to Reformers discussions about recruitment work, he insisted he was not an "active participant" in the group chats. The distinction—between passive exposure and active participation—became his refrain.

The inquiry continues, with Ellis's absence and Greenwood's shifting recollections leaving substantial questions unresolved. What began as a joke about a fake administrator has opened into a broader examination of how money moved through Beckington, what work it was meant to purchase, and whether those involved understood—or were willing to acknowledge—the political purpose of the payments they authorized.