Jeremy Greenwood, who worked for Nationals leader Matt Canavan in 2017 before forming his own advisory firm, gave evidence at the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption on Monday.
Having previously told the inquiry that there was "a lot going on at home," Mr Greenwood disclosed that his wife had begun to have contractions when asked if he objected to the hearing finishing at 4.15pm.
Counsel assisting the ICAC Peggy Dwyer SC questioned Mr Greenwood about invoices paid to Carmel Bonaventura, the wife of Catholic Schools NSW employee and Reformers group co-founder Robert Assaf.
The invoices charged Mr Greenwood's Beckington Group thousands of dollars for what were purportedly consultancy services provided by Ms Bonaventura.
"Anyone looking at the accounts would be misled into thinking you were retaining Ms Bonaventura," Dr Dwyer said.
"What you were doing was processing these invoices and paying them out as if that consultancy service had been claimed."
Mr Greenwood accepted that assertion, but admitted that he "never put any thought into why he had his wife on it."
"I never would have viewed it as a scheme," he said.
The inquiry had previously heard that Mr Assaf felt entitled to a 10 per cent commission for bringing Catholic Schools NSW on board as a client.
Mr Greenwood told the inquiry that he considered the invoices to Ms Bonaventura to be part of that commission arrangement.
He also claimed that either Mr Assaf or Christian Ellis, with whom Mr Greenwood co-founded Beckington in 2019, told him that the arrangement wasn't unusual.
"Every tradie in Sydney has their wife as the director," Mr Greenwood claimed one of the men told him.
Mr Greenwood was also questioned about payments made to Jean-Claude Perrottet, the brother of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, for "manning the phones" at Beckington while he and Mr Ellis were travelling in the UK in 2020.
Monday's session marked the beginning of the third week of hearings for Operation Rosny, which has been probing claims of illicit political donations and branch-stacking spearheaded by the so-called Reformers faction.
The Reformers were a conservative Christian cohort among state Liberals, formed around 2018 in an attempt to influence the party's policy-making.
Earlier in the day, Mr Greenwood denied having strong links with the conservative group.
"I may have given verbal advice ... most of the engagement I had with these guys was at a pub or I've been dragged into a group chat," he said.
"I'm not someone who's an ideologue," he added, before later conceding that he supported the causes the group was pursuing.
Despite his assertions, it was revealed that Mr Greenwood had encouraged Mr Ellis to ensure he was "pushing Reformers always," in a message seen by the inquiry.
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