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Catholic Schools NSW boss Dallas McInerney has described the right-wing factional group the Reformers as “spectacularly unsuccessful” in their mission to push conservative values within the Liberal Party.

McInerney, a right-wing powerbroker, began giving evidence on Thursday to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which is investigating whether he funnelled Catholic Schools NSW money to the Reformers.

The schools’ body chief, who has stood aside from his role pending this inquiry, told the commission he was “mostly” supportive of the work of the Reformers, but their model was not right.

Counsel assisting the commission Juliet Curtin asked McInerney whether fellow Liberals Christian Ellis, Robert Assaf and Jean-Claude Perrottet were fervent or passionate Reformers. McInerney instead described their factional work as “a calling for them, a duty”.

McInerney was also asked whether he had harboured political ambitions to run for parliament.

He said he did want to run for public office at different stages and had believed there was a deal in place with the late senator Jim Molan, which would have seen McInerney replace him. However, Molan ultimately did not retire.

Curtin put to McInerney: “You backed Mr Molan on the mutual expectation that he would retire partway through the Senate term and help facilitate you taking over a Senate seat, is that correct?”

“That’s what Molan put to me,” McInerney said. Asked whether he was disappointed Molan did not retire and make way for him, McInerney said he was not sure how he felt at the time.

In a message shown to the ICAC, McInerney told Liberal lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood: “I know I’ve been f---ed. I could have won the preselection there. [Matt] Camenzuli and [Lou] Amato ... and Connie [Fierravanti-Wells have been doing anyone but Dallas campaign for months.”

“Yeah, it’s f---ed. It’s f---ed. It’s f---ed,” McInerney’s message to Greenwood said.

Meanwhile, NSW Liberal leader Kellie Sloane has replaced Opposition planning spokesman Chris Rath as her representative on the party’s powerful state executive after it emerged the senior frontbencher helped fellow party members avoid providing evidence to a key parliamentary inquiry.

On Wednesday, the ICAC confirmed Rath was integral in helping lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood, as well as Jean-Claude Perrottet and his brother Charles, avoid attending a 2023 inquiry by keeping them abreast of the committee’s deliberations. Rath was a member of the committee.

That parliamentary inquiry into illegal donations and the Hills Shire Council was one of the catalysts for this ICAC inquiry, which is also investigating Nassif’s links to Liberal operatives and payments from Catholic Schools NSW to the Reformers.

Sloane has declined to take any further action against Rath, who also took a photograph of a committee document and forwarded it to key witnesses involved in the parliamentary inquiry.

He remains on her frontbench. Senior Liberal elder Damien Tudehope has stood aside from her shadow cabinet because of his links to several persons of interest to the ICAC.

Further reading

Here are some of the highlights of our ICAC coverage.