The report indicates ICAC considers the matter is serious, complex and of “significant public interest” given its context with possible foreign influence on the NSW electoral process. It also indicated the targets of the inquiry are ALP officials, members of Chinese Friends of Labor and political donors, who may have allegedly evaded donation laws, which the report suggests can attract jail terms of up to 10 years. ICAC executed a search warrant on Labor’s Sussex Street office on December 18 over concerns the party had since January 2015 “entered into a scheme to evade the prohibitions and requirements of [the electoral funding act] relating to political donations”. In the complaint, Labor also accused the ICAC of leaking details of the raid to journalists, demanding the matter be investigated. However the inspector said there was “simply no evidence available” to support that claim.

Mr McClintock also noted there were several ALP staff on their phones during the execution of the warrant. After its own preliminary inquiries, the NSW Electoral Commission referred the matter to ICAC in January 2018, with the watchdog deciding in June that year to launch an investigation. The electoral commission identified possible offences including false statements and declarations, offences relating to caps on donations, schemes to circumvent donation restrictions, as well as other offences and failure to keep records. It made the referral to ICAC because it believed further evidence might be obtained through the “commission’s coercive powers”. Labor’s suggestions that the raid had been carried out “for purposes other than the proper exercise of the ICAC’s investigative powers” and based on improper motives were described by ICAC as “entirely scurrilous,” according to the report.

Labor complained it had produced “largely the same” documents to the NSW Electoral Commission and was “surprised” that ICAC obtained a search warrant. But ICAC argued it conducted the raid to “to maintain operational integrity”. Mr McClintock said it was reasonable for the ICAC to obtain documents by way of warrant “rather than leaving decisions as to compliance” in the hands of ALP officials. Hundreds of thousands of files were poured through during the raid, including one drive that contained almost a terabyte of information. “Material relevant to the commission’s investigation was scattered through different folders but it was difficult to identify whether any particular folder contained relevant material,” the report said.