Charles Perrottet testifies at ICAC about advice to developer Jean Nassif and political influence

Finally, we are hearing from one of the central characters, Charles Perrottet, in a saga that has occupied the Independent Commission against Corruption (Icac) for nearly four years.

It began with the dismissal of the Hills Shire council and a late night 2022 speech in NSW parliament alleging secret payments from a developer. It pirouetted to a pressure campaign allegedly to remove the then NSW building commissioner, and ended with real world impacts: defective high-rise buildings and thousands of unhappy homebuyers, with the developer nowhere to be seen.

Charles Perrottet, brother of the former NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, finally began giving evidence late Friday.

He told the commission that he had met the Toplace developer, Jean Nassif, now a fugitive in Lebanon, in December 2019 and had, over several years, provided him with advice on how to progress his developments.

Charles and Nassif bonded over their “frustrations” with David Elliott, the former member for Baulkham Hills, and a key figure in the rival centre-right faction of the Liberals, Charles told Icac.

“He was frustrated with a number of things. I would listen to him, I would appease him, because I wanted information from him,” Charles said.

Elliott had opposed some of Nassif’s developments in the Hills Shire area, earning the developer’s ire. Charles, for his part, was angry about Elliott’s attempts to unseat his brother Dominic and was looking for information on him.

Despite having a full-time job at BP as head of strategy, Charles was remunerated for his advice, though not directly.

“Jeremy [Greenwood, one of the Reformers] wanted to know if I wanted to share in their success,” Charles Perrottet said.

“I said, I have a full-time job. I didn’t want to be paid. I said, you can continue to pay Anita [Perrottet’s wife] and look after her.”

Icac is investigating whether Nassif paid $2m in an undeclared political donation to a group of Liberal-aligned conservative men known as the Reformers, including Greenwood and Christian Ellis, in the pursuit of certain political outcomes.

In the first weeks of its investigation it focused on how these allegedly illegal donations were allegedly used to fund this group and stack branches with highly conservative members, and ultimately shift the Liberal party to the right.

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But this week the inquiry has focused on a potentially far more serious issue from a public policy perspective: what, if anything, was done, primarily by Charles Perrottet, for the $2m from Nassif?

People like Charles Perrottet are not registered lobbyists. They do not appear in ministerial diaries because meetings on “political matters” with ministers do not have to be disclosed.

They can engage casually with key ministerial staff because meetings with staff don’t need to be disclosed anywhere. Many of those working for ministers have their own ambitions within the party and would be flattered by the attention.

First the good news: Icac works, but slowly

The inquiry might have taken four years to get off the ground but now we are seeing why.

Icac is painstakingly testing allegations of hidden payments made to Liberal operatives allegedly for consulting, and outcomes that were either delivered or sought from the Perrottet government.

Icac has gone through phone records, text messages, WhatsApp messages, mobile phone tower information, bank records, computers, tax returns and flight records, to track the movements of the key players and the money flow.

They even obtained CCTV footage of the main persons of interest meeting up in a hotel.

More challenging is establishing whether there is any nexus between payments and political outcomes.

Former builder commissioner David Chandler gave evidence this week of a whisper campaign, which he believed was aimed at ministers and the media, to have him removed.

Chandler, a 40-year veteran of the construction industry, is not under investigation by Icac.

A former minister, Eleni Petinos, gave evidence that she believed she was “used” in that campaign. She also said she believed she was sacked precipitously by the premier and that she thought there was something else at play. Petinos is not under investigation by Icac.

We’ve also heard about Hills Shire Liberal councillors being disendorsed and replaced by a committee of the state executive of the Liberal party.

Charles Perrottet and other Reformers occupied key positions on the committee.

The old Hills council had been opposing a Toplace development at Cherrybrook.

And of course Elliott lost his seat in parliament.

Conflicts of interests

The Reformers and others involved, like Anita Perrottet, deny that these payments were nefarious and argue instead that they actually did real consulting or lobbying work.

Charles Perrottet’s wife, Anita Perrottet, was paid $313,500 from lobbying company Beckington for 18 months in 2021 and 2022 for Greyhounds NSW work and $347,000 in 2022 in “project consulting fees” in the space of three months, “for being a sounding board” for Greenwood and JPG Advisory on Catholic Cemeteries Trust.

“That’s $660,999, that’s an enormous amount of money?” said counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer SC.

“I believe that is what I was worth. Jeremy believed I was a huge value-add,” Anita replied.

Anita Perrottet nominated three clients: Greyhounds NSW, while engaged by Beckington, and Catholic Cemeteries Trust and a vaping company, whose name she could not recall, for JPG Advisory,

“A sounding board on what?” Dwyer asked.

Anita said her advice was entirely oral and delivered during face-to-face meetings with Greenwood or using her husband’s phone.

But she “could not recall” a single detail of her advice. By the end of her two days in the witness box she had said the phrase more than 500 times.

Icac has been unable to uncover a single document relating to these clients other than invoices issued by Anita’s company, Macquarie Consulting. No research, emails, marketing strategies or even a text were uncovered.

This was 2022, the same time as the NSW premier Dominic Perrottet and his cabinet were debating whether to merge the Catholic-owned cemeteries with the state-owned cemeteries.

The Catholic Cemeteries Trust was vigorously resisting the merger.

The Catholic Cemeteries Trust was very successful. Despite the issue coming before cabinet several times during 2021 and 2022 and an independent report describing the situation as urgent, the Perrottet government declined to act.

Dominic Perrottet did not respond to requests for comment regarding disclosures of family ties to cabinet.

Do you know Jean Nassif?

At first Anita Perrottet denied that she knew Jean Nassif or that Toplace was a client.

But in true Icac style, the bomb was about to drop.

She was shown texts about a lunch at Nassif’s house. She said she didn’t remember her husband attending the lunch, but was shown photographs of her children playing at Nassif’s house and texts showing she suggested her husband pick up a bottle of wine to take.

Anita was shown a detailed email she allegedly sent to Antony Anisse at another Liberal-aligned lobbying firm, Premier National, regarding a Toplace development in Epsom Road, Rosebery,

The development was facing delays in getting its final occupancy certificate and the email purported to outline an eight-point plan to overcome the difficulties. Anita was unable to say even what some of the acronyms she had allegedly used meant.

Dwyer put to Anita that she was being put in “an impossible position” and that she was attempting to cover for her husband, who in fact, was working for Nassif. Anita denied she was lying.

“It was a transparent attempt to create a cover for a sham arrangement that had been established by Charles,” Dwyer said. “No,” said Anita.

‘You understand that there is an offence committed if you lie to Icac,’

Dwyer said. “Yes,” Anita said.

What did the premier know about his brother

When he appeared at Icac, former cabinet minister David Elliott described Dominic and Charles Perrottet’s relationship as “joined at the hip”.

Dominic Perrotet is not a person of interest.

Chandler gave evidence that Dominic Perrottet had begged him to stay on as commissioner, which was exactly the opposite of what Nassif wanted.

“I went up and had a cup of tea with the premier and he said: “David, you’ve heard the sentiment of the members and myself and we would like you to reconsider,” he told Icac this week.

On the other hand we saw texts that indicate Charles was intimately involved in securing the NSW premiership for his brother.

In October 2021, Dominic Perrottet became premier after the surprise resignation of Gladys Berejiklian.

In the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Friday we got a rare glimpse into the frantic manoeuvreing to secure him the leadership and the key people involved in the number wrangling.

One was Charles Perrottet, the NSW Liberal party right-faction power broker and younger of Dominic, Icac heard.

In text messages he and his wife, Anita, discussed his role: “Well, it’s definitely true that he couldn’t have done it without you!!” Anita texted.

“But hopefully, you can work together now and going forward to both achieve your goals. Does he feel bad about Kean?”

Charles replied: “Yep, I told him what he needs to do there.”

Matt Kean had had an agreement with Dominic to become his deputy leader, in return for delivering moderate votes, but ultimately appointed Stuart Ayres.

They also discussed pushing council matters with the premier, and also getting rid of David Elliott.

“That’s a call for tomorrow. I told him to turn his phone off and savour the moment with Helen, as tomorrow and Tuesday is going to be crucial in showing unity, we execute the prick as soon as party room is over.