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AAP
AAP
Politics
Farid Farid

NSW inquiry to report on southwest Sydney mayor claims

A NSW parliamentary committee is due to deliver its report into allegations of impropriety by southwest Sydney mayor Khal Asfour.

The committee was established after former Labor MP Tania Mihailuk raised the allegations under parliamentary privilege in 2022 against the Canterbury Bankstown mayor.

Ms Mihailuk said Mr Asfour, who was for a time a Labor candidate for the NSW election in March, had property links with disgraced party powerbroker Eddie Obeid.

Mr Asfour denied any wrongdoing.

He withdrew a bid to run for state parliament after separate media reports in January claimed he used ratepayer funds to pay for designer clothing.

Mr Asfour told the inquiry earlier this month he believed information handed to the committee had been selectively leaked.

"Before I had the opportunity to answer any of your questions, a deliberate and calculated leak aimed at damaging my reputation ... derailed my political ambitions," he said.

Mr Asfour said he was left with no option but to withdraw as Labor's upper house candidate.

Ms Mihailuk was exiled from Labor in 2022, and later announced she intended to run as an upper house candidate for One Nation at the March state election.

At a hearing in December, Mr Asfour said the inquiry was politically motivated and lacked transparency.

"I've had a political target on my back ever since, and this is payback," he said.

Mr Asfour was cleared of any wrongdoing in a separate, independent inquiry set up by the Canterbury Bankstown council to investigate Ms Mihailuk's allegations.

That investigation, led by Arthur Moses SC, found there was no evidence of any corrupt or unlawful acts by Mr Asfour, nor any breaches of the Code of Conduct or Local Government Act.

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