This was published 6 years ago
That's it for the ICAC blog.
You can read the full coverage of the day's events by Tom Rabe and Kate McClymont online, and in tomorrow's print edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.
The inquiry will resume tomorrow, but for a truncated half-day hearing. The Herald will, of course, be following the proceedings and will bring you all the news as it breaks.
As always, thank you for reading.
Dastyari has left the ICAC without a phone, but with a parting message for ICAC sceptics.
"If there was ever a case for a federal ICAC it's certainly this," he said
"The Labor Party can't and shouldn't be beyond reproach."
He directed a second message towards the NSW branch of the party, saying "enough is enough" and called for a ban private donations.
Dastyari may be without his phone tonight, after Counsel Assisting Scott Robertson requested the phone be surrendered to download his WhatsApp records.
Robertson said the WhatsApp messages - some of which Dastyari has voluntarily provided to the inquiry - had "plainly" revealed issues around the timing of key events.
He says the ICAC will need to commandeer the phone overnight to download the data.
Dastyari's lawyer Bruce Hodgkinson has objected to the request on privacy grounds.
"Mr Dastyari's phone has a wide variety of material" including "very personal information", Hodgkinson says.
Confusion abounds over the chronology of events on the evening of September 16, 2016.
Specifically, whether Dastyari picked up Murnain from NSW Parliament (as per Murnain's evidence) or from the corner of King and Elizabeth Streets in Sydney's CBD (as per Dastyari's evidence today).
Ian Neil SC (Murnain's lawyer) is suggesting to Dastyari that he had two meetings with Murnain. The first one occurred when he picked her up outside NSW Parliament, and the second occasion occurred later that evening when he picked her up on the CBD corner.
Dastyari rejects this: “My recollection is we met once that evening.”
Neil persists, suggesting Dastyari "conflated" the two meetings into the one.
Dastyari told ICAC investigators last week he advised Murnain to "cover your arse" and make sure she told everything to the party's lawyer, Ian Robertson.
The inquiry has been shown excerpts of Dastyari's compulsory testimony to Counsel Assisting Scott Robertson on August 22 (before the public inquiry kicked off this week).
Murnain's lawyer directs Dastyari to a section of the August 22 transcript where he discusses his response to Murnain's concerns regarding the donations and disclosures.
Robertson: As best you can now recall, do you recall what advice or suggestions you gave Ms Murnain regarding those concerns?
Dastyari: Look, my advice to her would have been, cover your arse, like protect your arse and make sure you tell Ian Robertson and make sure you get the lawyers in and don't worry about the expense of the party of getting really good lawyers.
Lunch is over and Dastyari is back in the box.
He is being grilled by Murnain's lawyer, Ian Neil SC.
Neil is putting to Dastyari that his memory has been "seriously diminished" by the passage of time (3 years), and the personal circumstances in his life at the time (ie the unravelling of his political career).
Dastyari responds: "I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'seriously'. They certainly have diminished over the passage of time."
The inquiry hears Dastyari was first contacted by ICAC investigators last week. In a phone call, an investigator told him he was required to give compulsory evidence, which he did on August 22.
Before the hearing resumes, it's worth recalling the broader context to Dastyari's fateful meeting with Murnain on the evening on September 16, 2016.
At the time, Dasytari, then a NSW Senator, was in a world of pain over his own links to Huang.
Herald investigative reporter Kate McClymont has compiled this background.
On 16 September 2016 a very distressed Kaila Murnain revealed to Sam Dastyari that she’d just been informed there could be a major problem over a $100,000 cash donation from Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo.
The ICAC is on a lunch break until 2pm - because lawyers gotta eat too!
Dastyari will be back in the witness box when the hearing resumes.
Dastyari has disputed Murnain's claim that the pair met out the back of NSW Parliament on the evening of September 16, 2016.
Instead, he claims they met in Sydney's CBD, where he picked her up in his car around 7.54pm and they drove around the city for up to an hour and a half.
"I believe there was only one meeting between Kaila and I that evening," Dastyari says.
"I believe I met her at the corner of King and Elizabeth .
Sam Dastyari has entered the witness box, and is now giving his version of the disintegration in his friendship with Murnain.
"Kaila and I drifted apart earlier in the year on a personal level," Dastyari says.
He says he's "moved on with politics and moved on with my life".
(Murnain has finished giving evidence for now, but she'll be back in the box next week.)
Dasytari says the last time he contacted her was around August 3 or 4, when he sent her a letter via WhatsApp.
He says he accidentally dialled her number through WhatsApp last week, but claims he hung up before she could answer.