Disgraceful and cynical are some of the words premier Chris Minns has used to describe a reported vote to refer him to the state’s corruption watchdog.

An inquiry will deliver its report on Friday as it investigates a pitch to sell the Australian Turf Club’s Rosehill Racecourse in Sydney‘s west and turn it into tens of thousands of homes in a deal worth $5billion. 

But late on Wednesday the NSW premier responded to media reports the committee conducting the inquiry will call for him to be referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, describing them as allegations based on no fact or evidence.

‘It’s disgraceful to politicise the ICAC with unsubstantiated rumours,’ Mr Minns said.

‘This is an old fashioned smear from a group of politicians opposed to changes at Rosehill,’ he added.

The unsubstantiated allegations were a cynical attempt at political point scoring, Mr Minns said.

Independent MP Mark Latham, a member of the committee, and of the turf club, claimed via social media on Thursday there is evidence to justify the ICAC referral, based on a meeting the premier had in October 2023.

Mr Minns described the turf club’s head of membership and corporate affairs Steve McMahon as a friend of more than 20 years in August, after Mr McMahon appeared at the committee inquiry earlier that month.

The committee was told Mr McMahon pitched the idea to the turf club’s chairman Peter McGauran on October 26, 2023.

The premier had a ‘meet and greet’ with the turf club four days later according to ministerial diaries.

Mr McMahon told the inquiry the meeting was to discuss the idea and the process for pitching it to the government, before investing member resources in a proposal.

‘You want to make sure that (the government) are not going to be automatically opposed to such a thing,’ he said.

High profile racehorse trainer Gai Waterhouse has previously testified the racing industry is ‘incensed’ by the plan.

In July, she told the parliamentary inquiry into the racing industry the ATC had no right to agree to the sale without a vote from its members.

Waterhouse said the members would never agree to selling the historic race track.

‘We would not be here today to discuss the sale of the cricket ground the SCG, or Bondi Beach, but yet we are here to discuss the sale to Rosehill,’ Ms Waterhouse told the inquiry.

‘The members are who own Rosehill. If they put it to the members now for a vote, it would be overwhelmingly against the sale.’

The ATC has maintained the deal is within its executive purview.