A horse racing official at the center of a political scandal is a former mayor who also stood as a Labor federal election candidate.
NSW Premier Chris Minns will be referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption over allegations he failed to declare a long-standing friendship with Australian Turf Club (ATC) Head of Corporate Affairs and Government Relations Steve McMahon.
The allegations center on an informal meeting between the couple earlier this year before the state government fast-tracked a deal to turn Sydney’s Rosehill Gardens racecourse into a new suburb with 25,000 homes.
Premier Minns and Mr McMahon are understood to have known each other for more than 20 years through their Labor connections in southern Sydney.
Before joining the ATC, McMahon was mayor of Hurstville Council in southern Sydney, from 2011 until 2013, when he was preselected as the Labor candidate in the federal seat of Barton after former attorney-general Robert McClelland decided not to run again. .
McMahon stepped away from politics after Liberal candidate Nickolas Varvaris won the federal seat, despite Labor previously holding it by an 8.9 per cent margin.
But McMahon’s support for the Labor Party and Minns did not wane and he repeatedly posted images of the pair at political events shortly after their defeat.
A post from January 2015 showed him knocking on his partner’s door for the upcoming state election in the seat of Kogarah, which Minns won.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns (right) will be referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption over allegations he failed to disclose a friendship with Australian Turf Club official Steve McMahon (left).
McMahon is the current Head of Corporate Affairs and Government Relations at the ATC and was previously a Labor candidate during the 2013 federal election.
“Chris Minns is welcome all over Kogarah today,” he captioned the post to X which included an image of a flyer in support of Mr Minns on a doormat.
Another post on McMahon’s
“Fighting to maintain renewable energy goals…Liberals are not showing,” he captioned the image.
The positions came while McMahon held positions such as chief executive of the NSW Trainers’ Association, vice-president of the NSW Racing Industry Advisory Group and director of Mortdale RSL.
He left the NSW Coaches Association at the end of 2015 but continued with the other jobs while also taking on roles as an ATC civil servant and then corporate affairs and government relations.
McMahon describes his current work at LinkedIn as enhancing the “development of ATC’s Strategic Plan including careers, infrastructure, property (and) future business plans.”
Minns is accused of rushing a deal to turn Sydney’s Rosehill Gardens racecourse (pictured Minns and ATC president Peter McGauren on the course) into a new suburb after an informal meeting with McMahon.
McMahon has repeatedly posted images of himself and Minns at political events in the decade since his departure from politics (pictured center, former federal minister Bill Shorten).
More recently, McMahon recently posted an image of him with Minns and climate change federal Chris Bowen at a charity event at Randwick Racecourse in August 2023.
The revelations come as a parliamentary committee led by opposition members of the Liberal Party voted to refer the project and its relationship to the McMahon and Minns meeting to the anti-corruption watchdog. Seven news reported.
“The committee considers that the Prime Minister should have declared a conflict of interest, especially in light of the ICAC decision on Operation Keppel,” the committee’s report reads.
Operation Keppel refers to the ICAC’s conclusion that former Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian engaged in serious corrupt conduct with her then-lover, former Liberal MP Darryl McGuire.
Daily Mail Australia does not suggest any wrongdoing on the part of Prime Minister Minns or Mr McMahon.
The committee that studied the agreement asked Mr. Minns, who proposed remodeling the racecourse.
The scandal forced Berejiklian to resign as Premier of New South Wales in September 2021 and eventually leave politics altogether.
“It would have been, I don’t remember his position, but Steve McMahon at ATC,” Mr Minns said.
“I’ve known him for a long time.”
Minns said it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
‘Obviously, when you’re in government, people come and say, ‘Look, we have an idea.’ We think this would be good for our organization,’ he said.
“Maybe they’ll say this would be good for the state, too.”
Even though Steve McMahon left politics after losing the seat, he continued to support the Labor Party and Mr Minns and knock on doors for his 2015 state election campaign (pictured).
While working at a non-profit organization for New South Wales horse racing, Mr McMahon (left) also joined Mr Minns (centre) at other events, such as a fast-breaking party during the Ramadan in 2014.
Minns said he made the announcement about the redevelopment “shortly” after McMahon approached him.
When it was announced, a spokesman for Mr Minns said it was “the most important thing we will ever do as a government”. If this comes out, put it like this.’
High-profile racehorse trainer Gai Waterhouse has previously testified that the racing industry is “outraged” by the plan.
In July, he told the parliamentary inquiry into the racing industry that the ATC had no right to accept the sale without a vote from its members.
Waterhouse said members would never agree to sell the historic racetrack.
“We would not be here today to discuss the sale of the SCG cricket ground or Bondi Beach, but we are here to discuss the sale to Rosehill,” Ms Waterhouse told the inquest.
Minns (pictured with his wife Anna) told a parliamentary committee there was nothing out of the ordinary about the proposed deal.
‘The members are the owners of Rosehill. If they put it to a vote now to members, they would be overwhelmingly against the sale.’
The ATC has maintained that the agreement is within its executive jurisdiction.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Premier Minns office for comment.
Minns became local MP for Kogarah in 2015 and served almost two years as leader of the New South Wales opposition before being elected premier in the 2023 election.