Reclusive businessman steps down from a dozen companies

Reclusive businessman Michael O’Hara quietly stepped down as director from a dozen of his hotel companies weeks before the Independent Commission Against Corruption named him as part of its probe into banned political donations.

O’Hara is under investigation alongside a swath of Liberal Party powerbrokers in a scandal that allegedly links illegal donations, including from fugitive property developer Jean Nassif, to Liberal Party recruitment and branch-stacking.

O’Hara’s former colleague at a Strathfield law firm, former shadow attorney-general Damien Tudehope, resigned from the Liberals’ front bench on Friday because he is to be called as a witness at the hearings which start on July 27.

The ICAC is investigating whether secret donations were made to the Liberal Party on behalf of O’Hara via one of his companies, Paslibdan Pty Ltd.

The Sydney lawyer and hotelier is a prohibited donor in NSW because he has previously been involved in property development.

O’Hara, 83, has made no public statement about the investigation and did not respond to requests for comment.

Friends and associates the Herald spoke to were baffled by the ICAC investigation and said they did not believe O’Hara had done anything wrong.

“He is a gentleman,” one associate said. “Anyone would regard him as a decent, devout person who would strive to do the right thing.”

On May 11, O’Hara resigned as director from 12 companies, most of which are related to his hotel interests and include pubs in Blacktown, Parramatta, Fairfield and the Illawarra, according to company records held by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.

It is unclear whether the changes in business ownership are related to the ICAC investigation. This masthead is not suggesting any wrongdoing by O’Hara.

He remains a director at O’Hara Group, which owns around 30 hotels, mostly in regional NSW, and sole director at Paslibdan.

Paslibdan has not declared any donations to the Liberal Party, but it gave $150,000 to conservative campaigning group Advance between 2023 and 2025, making it one of the organisation’s premier donors.

The company also donated $20,000 to Australians for Unity, a group led by Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine that campaigned for a “no” vote in Voice referendum for Indigenous recognition in the Constitution in 2023.

Another O’Hara company, Miroma Investments Pty Ltd, donated $37,000 to Advance shortly after the campaigning organisation was founded in 2018, Australian Electoral Commission records show.

O’Hara also registered two individual $1000 donations to the Christian Democrats (Fred Nile Group) at state level in 2018 and another $1000 in 2014, according to the NSW Electoral Commission.

O’Hara worked alongside Damien Tudehope at O’Hara and Company, a legal and conveyancing firm in Strathfield, for many years.

Tudehope said on Friday that while there was “no suggestion of any wrongdoing by myself, nor am I under investigation” the probe involved “several people with whom I have had close relationships during my political career”.

O’Hara served as president of the Parents and Friends Association at St Joseph’s College in Hunters Hill in 1995 and 1996, when two of his sons were boarding at the school, and was an active member of the parish council of the Holy Name of Mary Parish in Hunters Hill.

The ICAC investigation follows a NSW Upper House Inquiry into Liberal branch-stacking in the Hills district.

The inquiry heard allegations that a group of right-wing figures in the NSW Liberal Party calling themselves the Reformers were seeking to court new members via a series of events focused on conservative issues such as euthanasia, “radical gender ideology” and vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Reformers allegedly had access to databases of supporters of the “no” cause during the marriage equality postal survey and sought funding from wealthy donors as well as recruiting new members.

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