Source : Perth Now news
A brother of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet has told a corruption inquiry he knew fugitive property developer Jean Nassif wanted to build influence inside the Liberal Party.
Charles Perrottet told the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption he tried to keep the developer onside for his own reasons.
He said Mr Nassif often rang him directly to complain about his projects and figures including former minister David Elliott.
“I wanted to appease him. I humoured him at times because I had an ulterior motive to seek some information from him in regard to allegations that had been around,” Charles Perrottet said in evidence on Friday.
He also told the inquiry he helped chase unpaid Beckington invoices and gave Mr Nassif updates about activity inside the Liberal Party, while insisting “what I said to Jean Nassif was very different to my actions in the party”.
The ICAC is investigating whether fugitive developer Mr Nassif made illegal donations to Liberal Party figures in return for help advancing his interests, including efforts to remove former building commissioner David Chandler from office and damage the political career of former minister David Elliott.
Dominic Perrottet, Mr Elliott and Mr Chandler are not accused of any wrongdoing.
Wife’s second day of evidence
Charles Perrottet’s wife Alice earlier on Friday spend a second day in the witness box at the ICAC.
She was pressed over nearly $661,000 paid into her company, disputed travel claims and a detailed email about Mr Nassif and Toplace as an ICAC corruption inquiry intensifies.
Anita Perrottet returned to the witness box on Friday, while her husband Charles Perrottet began his evidence late in the day and will resume on Monday.
Ms Perrottet first gave evidence on Wednesday when she was questioned about payments to her company, her business dealings and what she knew of her husband’s political work.
She is not a person of interest in the ICAC hearing.
Money and records
A major focus was the money paid into Ms Perrottet’s company, Macquarie Consulting, from Beckington and JPG Advisory.
Counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer SC told the inquiry the total amount received over about two and a half years was roughly $661,000, despite Ms Perrottet maintaining there was no written work product because her advice was verbal.
“That’s an enormous amount of money to be paid for circumstances where you cannot produce a scrap of evidence in relation to work done,” Ms Dwyer told her.
Ms Perrottet stood by her evidence that the work was genuine and oral.
‘The game is exposed’
Ms Perrottet was shown an email she purportedly sent to Jeremy Greenwood in March 2023 sharing documents relating to work for Greyhound Racing NSW, despite her earlier evidence that the work was entirely verbal.
The email was sent after a parliamentary inquiry had begun examining the activities of Liberal Party figures, including Mr Greenwood and Charles Perrottet.
The commission was told Ms Perrottet had also created a shared drive of Greyhound Racing NSW material.
Ms Perrottet told the inquiry she could not remember creating the documents or what was in them.
“That is a completely sham email suggesting an arrangement where you’re swapping or sharing greyhound docs that did not exist, isn’t it?” Ms Dwyer said.
Ms Perrottet replied: “No.”
“Oh, Mrs Perrottet, the game is exposed, isn’t it? It is just completely ludicrous to maintain the position that you have, that this was a genuine business,” Ms Dwyer said.
Ms Perrottet responded: “It was a genuine business.”
Ms Dwyer then put to her that the evidence she had given “is patently false”.
Ms Perrottet replied: “I’m sorry, I had forgotten about these. I don’t remember.”
Texts on power
A series of messages shown to ICAC placed Ms Perrottet squarely inside conversations about the Liberal Party’s internal power struggles as Dominic Perrottet moved into the premiership.
In one exchange, Charles Perrottet told his wife he had a “long call with Dom” and that his brother had thanked him “for everything, not just this weekend, but the last 20 years to get here”.
Later, after Ms Perrottet asked whether David Elliott would miss out on a ministry, Charles replied: “I didn’t ask … We execute the prick as soon as party room is over.”
Asked if there was any other way to read that message other than as a reference to Mr Elliott, Ms Perrottet told the inquiry she was not sure what it meant.
David Elliott is not accused of wrongdoing.
Travel claims questioned
The inquiry then turned to flights, hotels, parking, Ubers and other costs claimed through Macquarie Consulting in late 2021 and early 2022.
Ms Perrottet struggled to explain a series of Sydney expenses and accepted some may have been “an oversight” or “an error”.
“If I came to Sydney and I recorded it like this, it would have been a combination of family and work,” she told the commission.
Ms Dwyer repeatedly put to her that some of the claimed Sydney expenses appeared to match Charles Perrottet’s travel rather than her own, including dates when text messages showed he was in Sydney and she was in Melbourne.
Ms Perrottet did not accept that her husband was claiming work expenses through her company.
Toplace email revealed
The inquiry also homed in on an October 2020 email sent from Ms Perrottet’s Macquarie Consulting account to lobbying firm Premier National about a Toplace development in Rosebery.
The email referred to owners wanting to “commence action against Jean for noncompliance due to not having the OC in place” and set out detailed project and planning issues.
Ms Dwyer pointed out that Ms Perrottet had previously told the inquiry she did not work for Toplace, did not work for Mr Nassif and did not know the project belonged to Toplace.
“You’ve told us up until this time, Mrs Perrottet, that you did not work for Toplace, you did not work for Jean Nassif, you did not know that this was a development owned by Toplace, and here I’m showing you a detailed email where you are advocating in relation to Toplace and Jean Nassif,” Ms Dwyer said.
Lunch and politics
Ms Perrottet was shown messages sent to her husband before the lunch, including one suggesting “you should look up a wine to buy and take on Saturday”, along with another on the day referring to her being too sick to attend.
Asked whether that refreshed her memory that the plan had been for her and Charles to attend lunch with the children at Mr Nassif’s home, she replied: “No, I don’t remember that at all.”
She was later shown photographs of her children playing at the home.
Asked whether that prompted any memory that Charles and the children had been there, Ms Perrottet replied: “No, I’m sorry.”
The inquiry was also shown a text exchange between Ms Perrottet and her husband that touched on Liberal Party branch politics.
In one message, Charles Perrottet mentioned veteran conservative Liberal figure David Clarke and the Beecroft branch before adding, “Sorry that was for Christian.”
Ms Perrottet replied, “Your other lover.” In another, she wrote: “time to kill Clarke, isn’t he like 305 years old?”
Ms Dwyer suggested the exchange showed Ms Perrottet did discuss her husband’s political work with him.
Ms Perrottet replied: “I appreciate that from this text exchange it looks like that, but for me, it’s one of probably hundreds of millions of text exchanges with my husband.”
