NSW's anti-corruption watchdog has been shown text messages suggesting federal opposition leader Angus Taylor either paid money to the hard-right factional group the Reformers, or was refusing to, according to counsel assisting the inquiry Juliet Curtin.

The evidence surfaced during questioning of Jean-Claude Perrottet, a 29-year-old Reformer member and former electorate officer for NSW Liberal upper house member Damien Tudehope. Curtin put it to Perrottet that text messages suggested Taylor "had paid some money to the Reformers ... or was refusing to." Perrottet replied: "It sounds like that's the suggestion" (The Guardian, 6 August 2026).

Taylor is not named in ICAC's allegations and has previously denied making payments to the Reformers. The inquiry, code-named Operation Rosny and presided over by commissioner Fabian Gleeson SC, is investigating whether the Reformers solicited or accepted illegal donations to fund the recruitment or renewal of Liberal Party members — a practice known as branch stacking, where factions sign up large numbers of members (sometimes improperly) to gain internal party power. Public hearings began in the week of 27 July 2026 (SBS, 30 July 2026; ICAC website).

The text messages at the centre of Thursday's evidence were sent by Reformer cofounder Christian Ellis in September 2021. Ellis told the group it had "zero dollars at the moment" because "Michael O'Hara hates the vax campaign, and Angus Taylor hates Rob." The Rob in question is Robert Assaf, the Reformers cofounder who gave evidence to the inquiry. Assaf testified that hotelier Michael O'Hara, a prohibited donor under NSW electoral law, threatened to end an arrangement in which he paid lobbying company Beckington for Reformers factional work after the group adopted an anti-vaccination stance (The Guardian, 6 August 2026).

Beckington, set up by Ellis and fellow Reformer Jeremy Greenwood in 2019, received payments from O'Hara for factional work after issuing fake invoices for consulting advice. The inquiry heard that Jean-Claude Perrottet sent fake invoices when making different arrangements with O'Hara to continue funding (ICAC transcript, 31 July 2026).

Perrottet was questioned about invoices for four monthly payments of $5,000 and one payment of $5,500 from Beckington between April and August 2021, a period when he was employed at Medallion Finance on a base salary of $55,000. He told the inquiry he did not know why he received the payments (The Guardian, 6 August 2026).

Earlier in the week, the inquiry heard evidence that a person referred to as Mr McInerney wanted to seek a financial contribution from Taylor to fund the Reformers' work. A witness agreed when asked whether Taylor would give an initial injection of $15,000 and then a monthly retainer of $3,000 (ICAC transcript, 29 July 2026). Text messages also indicated the Reformers planned to "shake down" Taylor for money (ABC News, 28 July 2026). Taylor had agreed to speak at an event in Goulburn, but when asked whether conversations involved asking McInerney for money for the Reformers, the witness replied no (ICAC transcript, 28 July 2026).

The inquiry also heard that Jean-Claude Perrottet and Christian Ellis asked a person referred to as "Mare" for $50,000 to fund a branch operation for the Reformers (SMH, 2 August 2026). ICAC further heard that the late former federal Liberal vice-president Teena McQueen may have paid money to support Reformers work.

Dominic Perrottet, the former NSW premier and Jean-Claude's brother, is not named in ICAC's allegations and is not accused of wrongdoing. Jean-Claude Perrottet came to be described as an important member of the Reformers, and the inquiry heard that Taylor was "around the group" (ICAC transcript, 30 July 2026).

The accumulating evidence places Taylor closer to the Reformers' financial arrangements than his denials have acknowledged, though none of it amounts to a formal allegation against him. What ICAC has established, through testimony and contemporaneous text messages, is that multiple people within the Reformers orbit believed Taylor was either a source of funding or a target for it. The distinction between those two things matters, and the inquiry has not yet resolved it.

The broader context here is that the timing is uncomfortable for the federal Coalition. Taylor leads the opposition into a period when the NSW Liberal Party is already grappling with the reputational damage of a public branch-stacking inquiry. The transcripts, published on ICAC's website within 24 hours of each hearing day, mean every damaging detail enters the public domain in near real time. The presiding commissioner's findings of fact, when they come, will carry their own weight. Until then, the evidence is doing what ICAC evidence invariably does: accumulating in the public record, one transcript at a time, whether the subjects of it like it or not.

Transcripts from the first two weeks of Operation Rosny, covering testimony from 28 July through 5 August 2026, are available on the ICAC website.