Over the past five weeks, the ICAC has heard from dozens of witnesses from both inside the schools building unit and outside. Among the first was Rob Stokes, who was education minister when the agency was established, followed by past and present department secretaries, consultants and data analysts and more.
On day one, counsel assisting Jamie Darams SC outlined a tangled web of connections. One group of Manning’s associates is known to the ICAC as Manning’s “Cycling Group” and “Beer and Curry Group”. Both of these featured Stuart Suthern-Brunt, a contractor engaged at $2800 a day whose companies received more than $1.7 million in work from School Infrastructure.
Stuart Suthern-Brunt (right) arrives at the Independent Commission Against Corruption on June 2.Credit: Kate Geraghty
The inquiry has heard Manning and Suthern-Brunt have known each other since 2007.
The inquiry was shown detailed text messages and emails outlining the pair’s numerous social arrangements from about 2017 to 2019, including morning cycling sessions, yoga, breakfasts, dinners, a beer and curry night and a buck’s party.
Suthern-Brunt invited Manning to his daughter’s 21st birthday party and the pair discussed jewellery as a gift.
The inquiry has heard of another of Manning’s groups’, known as the Tom, Dick and Harry Breakfast Club, which took its name from the classic World War II film The Great Escape.
Martin Berry, the director of Heathwest Advisory, has had three appearances as a witness at the ICAC’s public hearings.
On Tuesday, Berry told the inquiry he was brought in to the school building unit in July 2019 to work on “three property transactions” for public schools planned at Chatswood, Wentworth Point and Westmead.
Berry, the sole director of Heathwest Advisory, was engaged as a contractor with the building arm on a rate of $2650 a day. Berry attended at a buck’s night and housewarming party with Manning in the months before starting as a top-paid consultant at the agency.
Also under examination are Manning’s connections with PwC and Paxon Group. School Infrastructure NSW paid about $4.45 million to Paxon between May 2018 and November 2022. More than $1.8 million was paid to PwC in 2017 and 2018.
The other example Darams highlighted in the opening was Manning’s connection with strategic communications adviser Kathy Jones and her associated companies. “The total amount paid to companies associated with Ms Jones from 31 January 2018 to 27 April 2024 was almost $9 million, most of which was paid before the end of 2022.” One witness told the inquiry that Manning had called her his “communications fairy godmother”.
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