The commission is expected to hear two days of evidence from Robert Assaf, a key member of the Reformers and former Catholic Schools NSW staffer.

Assaf, who spent a year training to be a priest, was named as a person of interest to the ICAC when Operation Rosny hearings were first announced.

Assaf was a policy and communications officer at Catholic Schools NSW and worked there at the same time as fellow ICAC witness Dylan Whitelaw, and then CEO Dallas McInerney, who is being investigated over allegations he used money from the school body to support the Reformers through sham invoices.

The commission is investigating whether Assaf, along with Jean-Claude Perrottet, Christian Ellis and Jeremy Greenwood, “solicited or accepted political donations, including from prohibited donors, in amounts that were not declared and exceeded applicable donation caps, for purposes that included the recruitment and/or renewal of members to the Liberal Party”.

The commission heard evidence yesterday from Whitelaw that Assaf spent 60 per cent of his time performing activities to benefit the Reformers while employed by the schools’ body.