A Liberal candidate described an Iraqi refugee who was convicted of masturbating in front of a minor on a train as a 'team player' in a character reference for an appeal against his rejected Australian citizenship application.

Carmen Lazar, the Coalition hopeful in the seat of McMahon in western Sydney, is a former Labor councillor who fell out with the party after energy minister Chris Bowen, and current McMahon MP, backed another candidate in the 2023 NSW state election.

Ms Lazar, an Order of Australia recipient and prominent member of the Assyrian-Australian community, appeared alongside Peter Dutton at a press conference last month where the Opposition Leader claimed she was doing a 'fantastic job'. 

It was in Ms Lazar's role as program manager at the Assyrian Australian Association that she penned a character reference in 2021 for a man who can only legally be identified by the pseudonym ‘TKQS’.

At the time he was a 30-year-old Iraqi refugee who had first arrived in Australia in December 2013 with ambitions to be a police officer.

But he had his application for Australian citizenship rejected in June 2021 because a delegate for the Minister for Immigration Alex Hawke found he was not of ‘good character’.

In addition to an extensive history of driving offences, the man had a conviction for committing an act of indecency with a minor.

According to a police facts sheet, he boarded a train on April 17, 2018, where he sat a row behind a minor and started masturbating. 

‘He continued to do so for 15 minutes and whilst looking in the direction of the victim,' the Administrative Appeals Tribunal decision on his rejected citizenship application states.

‘The victim left the train carriage and saw the Applicant’s penis. The Applicant smiled at the victim as she left the train and when she was standing on the platform.’

He was convicted of committing an act of indecency with a person 16 years or over and sentenced to an 18-month Community Correction Order.

Yet, when his application for Australian citizenship was rejected in 2021, Ms Lazar provided a character reference for his appeal.

It noted that she had known the man since December 2013 when he was a volunteer at the Assyrian Australian Association. 

‘She (Ms Lazar) writes that he was a reliable "team player" during his time as a volunteer,’ the published decision adds.

Daily Mail Australia approached Ms Lazar to ask if she knew about his offending before she wrote the reference for him.

This publication also inquired whether Ms Lazar took steps to learn why his citizen application had been refused. 

A spokesperson for the Coalition campaign said 'Carmen is well known for her work with refugees'.

'This would have been one of more than one hundred people she assisted,' they added.

'So again, we cannot comment on a matter where the person's identity is suppressed.'

At his original sentencing, TKQS told Liverpool Local Court it was '‘not until I was arrested for these offences that it truly hit me that something was terribly wrong with me’.'

'To this day, I struggle to understand why I did behave in such a disgusting way,' he told the court.

He claimed he was in a 'dark place' and was stressed by his mother's illness.

During his appeal against his rejected citizenship, he also claimed he was suffering from PTSD after being kidnapped as a child in Syria, where he lived for a time.

'I do it (masturbate) when I'm really stressed and I have too much in my mind. I want to relax and to have a good time,' he told the tribunal.

It also emerged during his failed appeal that in 2017 he had received a speeding ticket and falsely nominated another person as being behind the wheel.

He was fined $250 for the speeding offence and $5,000 for the false nomination, reduced to $2,000 on appeal.

He told the tribunal he had done this due to an 'ingrained fear of police based on the reputation and actions of law enforcement officers in my homeland of Iraq and Syria, where corruption, graft, racism and violence was endemic among the police forces'.  

Tribunal member Shane Evans said he 'accept(s) the Applicant appreciates how much distress and discomfort his offending caused to the victim'.

But he was critical of his attempts to explain his driving offences. 

'His argument that his actions were driven by a deep mistrust of law enforcement is not supported by evidence and contrary to his previously stated ambition to become a police officer,' Mr Evans stated.

Ultimately, his appeal against his rejected citizenship application was rejected on Huly 5, 2022.

'The Applicant’s individual offences are not insignificant and his driving record and the nature of the 2017 offence indicate a disregard for the law,' Mr Evans added. 

'I have taken into account the Applicant’s positive character references, traumatic background and the other good qualities. 

'The Applicant’s expression of remorse is acknowledged but afforded limited weight given his obfuscation of the 2017 offending including his initial claim to the Tribunal that he had done nothing wrong.'

Ms Lazar used to serve as a Labor councillor for Fairfield City Council before her falling out with the party.

She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in January 2014 for her contribution to the Assyrian community.

'Carmen Lazar is often the first point of contact to offer help and support to new migrants in the area,' an article by the Assyrian International News Agency reported at the time. 

Ms Lazar and incumbent MP Chris Bowen are also competing against independent Matt Camenzuli, who was touted to unseat the Labor frontbencher in a recent poll.

However, Daily Mail Australia revealed serious doubts about the poll's efficacy.

The poll said it was 'conducting local research to understand what matters most to McMahon voters' yet people from neighbouring electorates received it too, as did others from as far away as the NSW Central Coast.  

A video showed that Mr Camenzuli's name appeared to be 'pre-ticked' as a favoured candidate, meaning respondents would actively have to untick his name to choose someone else. 

Daily Mail Australia approached Compass, the company behind the poll, for comment on the video. 

A spokesperson for Mr Bowen claimed the poll was a 'desperate grab for attention'.