It is such a delicious Sydney story, or rather, such a Sussex Street, NSW, Labor Party story, complete with all the usual props, tropes and memes.
A paper bag of $100,000 cash, shadowy property developers, Labor Sussex Street HQ, a Haymarket chinese restaurant and the predictable gaggle of Labor luminaries. The only thing missing was the usual array of organised crime bosses, colourful racing identities, Eddie Obeid, Neville Wran, Rex (Buckets) Jackson and Tirith Khemlani, the central character in the 1975 loans affair.
This would be the same NSW Labor Party in full ‘whatever it takes’ mode that totally banned property developers in 2009 from any kind of political donations.
A fiendishly clever ploy designed to screw with the Liberals fund raising ability because Labor had their own rivers of cash via a re-purposed union movement with their links and control of industry super funds and didn’t need them, until billionaire property developer, Huang Xiangmo came knocking with a deal to good to refuse