A group of twenty-something blokes who called themselves the Reformers dared to dream big. The like-minded right-wing Catholics had a plan to take over the Liberal Party one branch at a time to make the conservative movement great again. In July 2018, God delivered.

“Great news. God’s granted us a victory,” Reformers co-founder Robert Assaf boasted in a message to a supporter of the sub-faction of the Liberals. “We’ve officially taken the Coffs Harbour branch away from the Left wing.”

In another message to wealthy hotelier Michael O’Hara, who a month earlier had given the Reformers $25,000, Assaf said: “It’s the only branch in the whole federal electorate of Cowper, meaning it holds more influence than other branches in the state.”

Liberals were stunned when the Coffs Harbour branch featured in the blockbuster Independent Commission Against Corruption’s inquiry into illegal donations and branch stacking. Not so much because the Reformers pulled off a coup, but that the Liberals even existed in Nationals heartland.

A senior NSW Liberal quipped: “I didn’t even know we had a Coffs branch”.