ICAC hears of Charles Perrottet’s links to a property developer and the $5m bribe that wasn’t

Here’s a question for members of the NSW Liberal Party. If you are shown an email seeking a $5 million bribe for a prominent State official, do you a) call the police or anti-corruption commission, b) shake your head and think “that sounds terrible” or c) ask yourself why an extortioner would demand illicit money be sent to a trust fund controlled by a law firm, where it could be tracked.

Faced with this situation in 2021 Charles Perrottet, a party activist and younger brother of the then-NSW treasurer and later premier, Dominic Perrottet, told the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption on Friday he advised the home-building company that was ostensibly the target of the massive extortion attempt to contact police — and then did nothing else.

The commission is investigating whether builder-turned-fugitive Jean Nassif wrote the unsigned bribery demand to look like he was the victim of an extortion attempt by his nemesis, NSW building commissioner David Chandler. Mr Chandler immediately proposed alerting the police when Mr Nassif confronted him with the letter.

Faced with sceptical questions today about his muted response to an apparent multi-million extortion attempt by the man appointed to clean up the State’s building industry, Charles Perrottet, who provided Mr Nassif with political advice, said he took the document at face value.

“Until the suggestion made today I was unaware it potentially wasn’t real,” he said.

That answer, and other evidence that Charles Perrottet and other Liberals used Mr Nassif’s money to wage factional warfare within the party, could cast a long shadow over the Coalition’s attempt to win back power in the most populous State.

While the Liberals’ internal politics are exposed in daily forced testimony from Mr Perrottet and other party figures, the Labor Premier, Chris Minns, has run a largely scandal-free Government that has concentrated on traditional State areas of responsibility, including crime, transport, education and hospitals.

The contrast is heightening concerns within the Liberal Party that Mr Minns’ minority Government will win seats from the Coalition at the election scheduled for next March. The Coalition is under threat from One Nation too, which could attract conservative voters turned off by the ICAC revelations.

In a decision interpreted as showing a lack of confidence in the Coalition’s prospects, this week shadow energy minister James Griffin said he would retire from politics.

On Friday, wire taps were played in the commission of Mr Nassif boasting in 2021 that the elevation of Dominic Perrottet to premier would allow him to remove two enemies he considered were harming his business - police minister David Elliott and Mr Chandler, the building commissioner who was forcing him to fix problems with apartment buildings before customers could move in.

Among them were two apartment buildings called Skyview in the suburb of Castle Hill that Mr Chandler banned from occupancy after extensive cracks were found in a basement.

The order prompted Mr Nassif to send Charles Perrottet a message expressing frustration at the damage to his company, Toplace.

“This needs to stop,” he wrote. “This commissioner has abused his powers for political favours. I had enough.”

His expectations that Mr Chandler would be removed rose after premier Gladys Berejiklian abruptly resigned in 2021 and the right faction worked to elect Dominic Perrottet premier.

“I’m going to f..k everyone, commissioner,” he said in a secretly recorded call played in the commission. “A couple of weeks he’ll be gone.”

In another call he said: “They’re my the people, the right wing. The commissioner — his neck, get soon, very soon. Lets get his boss changed and I put my lady in her, in his spot, position, the consumers affairs minister, and they are going to get her to step on f.....g David Chandler and get rid of him.”

After Dominic Perrottet was elected premier, Charles Perrottet texted Mr Nassif: “We did it.”

“Great, I know,” Mr Nassif replied, followed by a muscled-arm emoji.

Eleni Petinos was appointed fair trading minister in the Perrottet government. Mr Chandler resigned the following year, complaining his work was being undermined, and later reinstated.

Mr Nassif was scheduled to testify to the commission today from overseas, where he is sheltering from arrest warrants issued for fraud and money laundering. Instead, he provided a medical certificate stating he wasn’t fit to appear.

Ms Petinos told the commission on August 20 that Charles Perrottet told her in a phone call that Mr Chandler was a bully and “dodgy”, a conversation she believed was designed to undermine her confidence in him.

On Friday Charles Perrottet said he did not remember the conversation and it was “not fair” to accuse him of trying to remove Mr Chandler, who was appointed in response to the poor condition of new apartment buildings across Western Sydney.

One of the best-known cases was a 36-storey building, the Opal Tower, which was evacuated after residents heard loud banging and cracking noises coming from the concrete structure.

Mr Perrottet denied he was paid by Mr Nassif but helped him to “maintain good relations” and regularly lied about what he could do for him. He said the “we did it” comment was a reference to the Liberal Party’s right faction, not to Mr Nassif.

His older brother, Dominic, has been explicitly declared by ICAC as not a target of the investigation. So too has Ms Petinos, who remains an opposition frontbencher.

ICAC, through Operation Rosny, is investigating payments of $2 million it says went from Mr Nassif to Charles Perrottet and two Liberal Party allies, Christian Ellis and Jeremy Greenwood.

Property developers are banned from political donations in NSW to prevent them trying to illicitly influence approvals of new buildings. Some lawyers have questioned whether the law covers money used by entities operating within political parties, including organised factions, to recruit members to help win internal elections.

The hearings have highlighted how Charles Perrottet and some of his brothers engaged in an almost two-decade-long fight with another faction, the centre right, for control of the Liberal Party in an area of northern Sydney known as the Hills District.

Their enemies included Mr Elliott, who’s seat was abolished in 2023, and Alex Hawke, who remains the Federal MP for the seat of Mitchell.