Property development and corruption seem to be regular bedfellows in New South Wales. Maybe it’s the state’s convict origins. Perhaps it’s because riches in property development are heavily determined by state and local government decisions. A few more floors or a rezoning can mean millions.
In offices across Sydney, current and former Liberal MPs are glued to the Independent Commission Against Corruption live feed, wondering whether one of their colleagues will be named as a person of interest in Operation Rosny.
So far, no elected or public official has been named as a person of interest or accused of wrongdoing, though some have been called as witnesses, including the former finance minister Damien Tudehope, former transport minister David Elliott and former fair trading minister Eleni Petinos.
Related: Charles Perrottet denies asking brother as premier to appoint cabinet minister, Icac hears
Instead the key figures under investigation in relation to branch stacking and alleged illegal donations are those adjacent to politics: lobbyists, rightwing Liberal powerbrokers and assorted donors.
They include the fugitive developer Jean Nassif, who is alleged to have given $2m to three rightwing operatives: Charles Perrottet – the brother of the former premier Dominic Perrottet – and Jeremy Greenwood and Christian Ellis, two lobbyists. The three are alleged to have shared the payment equally .
The evidence presented so far raises some disturbing questions about the influence of these figures in NSW politics.
The focus this week has been Charles, who has been described as the “muscle” in the right faction of the NSW Liberal party and the “important person” among the group of rightwing operatives at the centre of the inquiry.
Charles has spent five days in the witness box. Some of the allegations being raised by counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer are astounding.
Among them are allegations that emails and texts purporting to be a “shakedown” seeking $5m from Toplace in return for getting the building commissioner off Nassif’s back may have been an elaborate ruse designed to smear the building commissioner.
Charles agreed he had been briefed by Toplace executives on the allegations of a shakedown.
“Can I suggest to you, Mr Perrottet, that it would have been obvious to you that these were shonky messages that did not appear to be legitimate evidence of any wrongdoing by the building commissioner,” Dwyer said.
“No, until the suggestion made today, I was unaware that it potentially wasn’t real,” Charles said.
Despite being aware of the “shakedown” texts in May 2021, Charles agreed he did not take them to the police.
Dwyer suggested it was “a serious allegation” that the inaugural building commissioner was on the take and Charles did nothing to report it.
We have also seen – for the first time – a five-point political strategy that Charles sent to Nassif. It involved getting another Liberal figure involved to lobby for Toplace, and Charles getting a departmental insider to stop a further inspection of Toplace’s Skyview apartments in Sydney.
Charles said it was not his strategy, but a cut-and-paste. He was “making up” the steps he was taking, he said.
Icac walked through steps taken by various rightwing operatives to put material damaging to the building commissioner into the media’s hands and before Petinos, the building commissioner’s boss.
“I became aware that the video and the budget estimates transcript could be going to the media,” Charles conceded.
But he denied he was behind the media strategy, nor was he behind the moves to get another rightwing staffer Chris Spence to convince Petinos that she should remove the building commissioner.
Many of the things Charles told Nassif were lies designed to placate him, he said.
Time and again, Dwyer returned to a text message Charles had sent to Nassif in May 2021 after a dinner meeting at the Japanese restaurant Nobu in Melbourne.
“I told Jean that the best way to get the building commissioner off his back is to take the fight to Elliot and dismantle his infrastructure. If we can get the 189 and Garthowen payments, we can take Parra, Hills, Cumberland Councils, and the seat of Castle Hill and completely isolate him. Elliot. As a result, he’ll be on his knees.”
Since its inception, Icac has been dealing with the heightened risk of corruption in relation to property development, beginning with its first inquiry in 1989 involving an investigation of land deals in the state’s northern rivers.
It started as an inquiry into Tweed Heads council and secret payments to local councillor Tom Hogan (inspiration for the plot in the film Muriel’s Wedding). The investigation quickly turned to the rezoning of crown land at Fingal, where developer Ocean Blue was seeking to build a resort. No parliamentarians were charged with any offence, but National party MPs were investigated.
Since then, the list of property-inspired investigations has become long: Rockdale council, Canterbury council , Wollongong council and multiple investigations into the Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid, including his secret Circular Quay leases and a coal mine .
More recently there have been findings by Icac of corrupt conduct against state MPs John Sidoti , whose family owned key sites at Five Dock, and most famously Daryl Maguire , whose dealings with Canterbury council and Chinese developers led to an investigation that revealed his secret relationship with the then NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian .
Berejiklian was replaced as premier by Dominic Perrottet in October 2021 – which brings us to Operation Rosny, the current Icac investigation.
Dominic Perrottet has not been named by Icac as a person of interest nor been called as a witness.
On its face, Icac is investigating allegations of undeclared illegal political donations which were sought and received by a group of young conservative rightwing men in the Liberal party known as the Reformers, which were alleged to have come from Catholic Schools NSW, the publican Michael O’Hara and Nassif.
Property developers and those in the hotel industry are banned donors. There are also limits on the size of donations and they must be declared.
But by late Friday afternoon, it was clear that Dwyer was zeroing in on what Charles Perrottet did behind the scenes to influence the political process.
The question remains: did an elected official do anything to deliver on what the lobbyists and powerbrokers were seeking? Or did the officials resist overtures to engage in corrupt conduct?
“I have been promised that the building commissioner will be fucking stopped or changed or done something to him, by tomorrow,” Nassif said on one phone tap that captured a call to a male person, as played to Icac.
In the call to a male family member, Nassif said Dominic Perrottet was his “boy” and bragged that he would install his preferred MP as fair trading minister to “step on fucking David Chandler and get rid of him”, Icac heard.
He also boasted that he had stripped Elliott of the police portfolio.
“I wouldn’t be taking that [Jean] Nassif’s words on phone calls as evidence of things other people have said,” Charles said.
The branch stacking operation in the Hills was highly successful. Elliott’s seat was abolished in a redistribution ahead of the 2023 state election and he was unable to secure support for a neighbouring seat.
The removal of Chandler, the building commissioner, was unsuccessful but led to enormous stress for him, causing him to resign – temporarily – in July 2022.
A less robust building commissioner might have backed off on Toplace, which was subject to multiple rectification orders. Toplace has since gone into administration, many buyers have been left with defective homes and Nassif is wanted on fraud charges.
Two of the three developments for which lobbying company Beckington – controlled by Ellis and Greenwood – received payments were fast-tracked, creating significant uplift in value for Nassif.
One possible take on the inquiry is that politicians and public officials resisted alleged improper influence. That would be a heartening conclusion.
But it would take a brave person to predict where an Icac inquiry might end.
In offices across Sydney, current and former Liberal MPs are glued to the Independent Commission Against Corruption live feed, wondering whether one of their colleagues will be named as a person of interest in Operation Rosny.
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Anne Davies. Published 4 Sept 2026, 03:00 pm.
