August 10, 2026 — 5:00amA group of 20-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”.The congenial branch of retirees was the Reformers’ first win in their audacious bid to take over the Liberal Party. It was also part of a plan to end the political career of right-wing warrior Concetta Fierravanti-Wells to make way for Catholic Schools NSW boss, Dallas McInerney, who had long held political ambitions.McInerney is a person of interest in the ICAC inquiry, which is investigating whether he used Catholic Schools NSW funds to pay bogus consulting invoices to bankroll the Reformers.Sources close to Fierravanti-Wells, who now lives in Italy, said the firebrand senator had suspected that the Reformers and others were plotting to replace her with McInerney. She thought she could fend them off but realised she had lost the support of her Right colleagues after a meeting at the late Teena McQueen’s home in Circular Quay.The Australian Financial Review reported in 2019 that Fierravanti-Wells was “tapped” at that meeting by then-NSW treasurer and right-wing faction boss Dominic Perrottet. At the time, McInerney was vying for a Senate spot.The ICAC inquiry has heard that Fierravanti-Wells was a backer of the Reformers in their early days, and was a guest speaker for at least one of their events. Assaf was employed in her office for a time.Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells in parliament the day after she criticised Scott Morrison, March 2022.Alex EllinghausenDallas’s brother Wade also worked in Fierravanti-Wells’ office for five years, before he joined Assaf at Greyhounds NSW.Wade helped organise the Coffs Harbour annual-general meeting in June 2018, according to documents seen by the Herald. A membership list also shows there were 25 members in the branch after the Reformers’ coup – 14 of whom had signed up in the preceding 12 months.Previously, country Liberals had proudly kept warring tribes out of their branches, labelling factionalism as “the Sydney disease” which bush members did not want to infect their patch.However, after the great Right-wing split, which saw Mitchell MP Alex Hawke breakaway from conservative state MP and kingmaker David Clarke and create the centre-right, factionalism made its way into country branches. The Reformers saw Coffs Harbour as ripe for the taking.Before sweeping reforms to Liberal Party rules, the little-known Coffs Harbour branch had two senate selector spots, which gave the tiny grouping two votes in a preselection for the senate. The Reformers saw country branches – which also included New England and Farrer in the state’s south – as key to controlling preselections and installing their people – conservative Catholics – into parliament.Ultimately, Dallas McInerney did not contest the 2022 senate preselection but as expected, Fierravanti-Wells lost, with former Army Major General Jim Molan narrowly beating her.On budget night in March 2022, just days after losing her preselection, Fierravanti-Wells took an almighty swipe at Liberal Leader Scott Morrison in parliament. “He is not fit to be prime minister,” she thundered. Fierravanti-Wells had been privately criticising Morrison for years.Unsurprisingly, what came next went largely unnoticed in the coverage of her now infamous speech.She moved on to Wade McInerney. “Following his departure to work for Robert Assaf at Greyhound Racing NSW, I discovered he was engaged in inappropriate conduct and activities,” Fierravanti-Wells told parliament. “I was duty-bound to refer him to the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Finance and the Australian Government Security Vetting Agency”.Wade McInerney said he was not contacted by any of the agencies and after making his own inquiries, does not believe any referrals were made. “I took it as a massive spray under privilege to damage reputations, me amongst many in that speech,” Wade McInerney said.Two months after Fierravanti-Wells’ explosive speech, the Morrison government was swept from office.As for the once mighty Coffs Harbour branch, political operatives on the north coast say it would be lucky to now have four active members, who turn out on polling days to hand out how-to-vote cards for their Coalition cousins, the Nationals.‘Not to be messed with’: Who is Dr Peggy Dwyer SC, the counsel assisting ICAC?How the NSW Reformers infiltrated the Liberal PartyThe ghosts of ICAC’s past haunt the NSW Liberals, writes Kate McClymontFrom our partners