ICAC witness Robert Assaf reveals then premier Dominic Perrottet’s office, two brothers intimidated him
‘This can’t happen, basically your career will be over if this happens’.
Former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet’s two brothers and his office pressured a conservative Liberal Party member to avoid giving evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into illegal donations from a fugitive developer, an anti-corruption hearing has been told.
In his third day of evidence to the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Operation Rosny inquiry, Robert Assaf revealed that an adviser to Mr Perrottet, Angus McCaffrey, had attempted to dissuade him by phone from appearing as a witness before an Upper House committee, that held public hearings in February and early March 2023 ahead of the State election that would end 12 years of Coalition rule.
“I remember being in contact with someone from the premier’s office, more being an intermediary between other people, it seemed, or that’s what I was told,” Mr Assaf said.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“Angus wasn’t part of it, he was just passing on what he heard to me and basically it was, when I told him about my view, ‘Why don’t I just go down and say this? Tell them what I know’, he wasn’t a fan of it primarily because others had said, ‘This can’t happen, basically your career will be over if this happens’.”
Mr McCaffrey was acting as an intermediary for Charles Perrottet, a brother of the then-premier.
“That’s what I understood at the time, obviously, I didn’t speak to Charles,” Mr Assaf said.
Asked by counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer, SC, if he felt pressured, Mr Assaf replied: “I did but it was more like, I just took it was their stress. They have a view, they disagree with me, and they’re applying max pressure on me to not do what I thought was right.”
Dominic Perrottet’s younger brother, Jean-Claude Perrottet, is also alleged to have sent a rat emoji in a disappearing group chat as part of the intimidation.
“Claude was not talking to me because he was apparently overseas somewhere, he was in hiding,” Mr Assaf said.
“Claude more came into effect after the suspicions of me. I just remember the group chats, I don’t know who was in them ... maybe Claude in that one too.”
The NSW Legislative Council called an inquiry in December 2022, six months after the then Liberal member for Castle Hill Ray Williams told the Legislative Assembly that developer Jean Nassif had given large sums to senior members of the NSW Liberal Party in a bid to replace elected members of Hills Shire Council with new councillors who would be more supportive of development applications from his company Toplace.
Mr Assaf had been heavily involved with lobbying firm Beckington, that had Toplace as a client and used its revenue to fund the work of a right-wing Christian group called the Reformers, who stacked out Liberal Party branches with conservatives in a bid to overthrow MPs from the Centre Right faction in favour of a candidate from the Right.
Asked if Mr Nassif had also hired private investigators to monitor him after feeding him false information, Mr Assaf replied: “I think that was part of it, yes. I think the other part would have just been seeing who I told.”
Mr Assaf, a former Liberal staffer, told the hearing on Monday his Right faction of the Liberal Party was aware of Mr Nassif making illicit political donations.
“Some people in the Right, not necessarily in our little group, were expressing concerns, making jokes and insinuations around Toplace and those sorts of things,” he said.
Mr Assaf told the inquiry that Christian Ellis, who ran Beckington, had told him he was sorting out a water issue for Toplace and not soliciting Liberal Party donations.
“To be precise, he was lobbying on behalf of him for some sort of water issue for a development of his,” he said.
“He was reassuring me that it was not dodgy development money.”
Mr Assaf has fallen out with Mr Ellis, who the inquiry heard had also used funds from Beckington’s other client Catholic Schools NSW to finance the Reformers.
“My concerns that I had around Mr Ellis, I found that I couldn’t get a straight answer out of him many times about certain things,” Mr Assaf said.
“He would say one thing to me and then I would just find out it might not have been fully true.”
Mr Assaf’s evidence wrapped up on Monday with State Liberal MP and former minister Damien Tudehope appearing on Tuesday ahead of Jean-Claude Perrottet.
