We tried to roll McKay: Buildev exec
A former executive at Nathan Tinkler's Buildev has admitted he manoeuvred to unseat ex-Newcastle MP Jodi McKay because she was blocking a proposal worth tens of millions of dollars to the company.
Text messages tendered to a corruption inquiry show that in the lead-up to the 2011 state election, David Sharpe pressed coal mogul Mr Tinkler for "$50k worth of carpet" to go towards an anti-Labor campaign.
Mr Sharpe also joked with a colleague about "kicking the s*** out of" sitting Labor member Ms McKay.
But it took nearly an hour of prodding in the witness box on Monday before Mr Sharpe confessed at the Independent Commission Against Corruption to wanting to remove Ms McKay.
"You knew you were organising this money with a view to getting rid of Jodi McKay, get rid of her because she stood in the way of Buildev getting its coal terminal, correct?" counsel assisting Geoffrey Watson SC asked.
After an agonising 29 seconds ticked by in silence, Mr Watson tried again: "What's going on here, do you know I've asked you a question? ... You wanted her out of that seat because she stood in the way of Buildev getting the coal terminal, correct?"
"Yes," Mr Sharpe finally agreed.
But he also thought the coal-loading terminal would be good for the economy, he said.
The response prompted Commissioner Megan Latham to ask: "Whose economy? Mr Tinkler's?"
Property developers have been blocked from funding political campaigns under NSW law since 2009.
The commission has also heard Buildev executives paid $1000 or more to fly corrupt ex-Labor minister Joe Tripodi to Newcastle for a meeting before the 2011 NSW election.
It's alleged he was helping with a plan to boot out Ms McKay in the hope of setting himself up with a post-election job at Buildev.
Former Buildev consultant Ann Wills, who has been described as Mr Tripodi's "eyes and ears" in the NSW Hunter region, agreed the company funded a campaign to defeat Ms McKay at the 2011 election.
In one text message to Mr Sharpe, Ms Wills said she was "on my way home to put the bitch in my freezer".
She explained it referred to a tip she borrowed from former federal Labor MP Belinda Neal, who is said to have kept frozen photographs of her political enemies.
But Ms Wills agreed that when she went hunting for "skeletons" in Ms McKay's closet, she came up empty-handed.
"Well, that's the point. There weren't any," Mr Watson said.
