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Right-wing Liberal operative Charles Perrottet has told a corruption inquiry he wanted to grow the conservative faction in the Hills area of Sydney, but insisted he did not use money from disgraced developer Jean Nassif to achieve political outcomes.
Perrottet on Thursday returned to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which is investigating whether he was one of three Liberal apparatchiks who shared in a $2 million bribe from Nassif.
Developers have long been banned from making political donations in NSW.
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Counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, suggested to Perrottet the reason he attended a lunch at the Chiswick home of Nassif in September 2020 was to celebrate a significant payment from the developer days earlier.
The commission has previously heard a $148,500 cheque was paid to Beckington, the lobby firm run by his Liberal allies Jeremy Greenwood and Christian Ellis, on September 11.
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Greenwood and Ellis also allegedly shared in the $2 million bribe from Nassif.
Perrottet, a BP executive, said there was no correlation between the lunch, also attended by Greenwood and Ellis, and a $148,000 cheque he received from Toplace on behalf of Beckington just days earlier.
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“I’m suggesting to you that that lunch was to celebrate this new arrangement that you had,” Dwyer asked. “No,” Perrottet replied.
Dwyer: “Where Jean Nassif would give money through Beckington to support political outcomes?” Perrottet: “No”.
The commission was also shown texts between Greenwood and Ellis sent about the time Nassif’s Cherrybrook residential development was refused in April 2020.
Greenwood told Ellis: “Charles f—-d this whole thing”, referring to Perrottet.
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The business partners discussed their fear they would lose Toplace and Nassif as a client if they could not get planning approval for the Cherrybrook project.
In other texts between Ellis and Perrottet, the pair discussed a development proposal and people Perrottet should contact, including Liberal MP Robyn Preston. The application number referenced in one of the texts correlated to the Cherrybrook development, the commission heard.
The commission was told Perrottet sent a text to Ellis reporting back on a call he had with Preston, but Perrottet told the inquiry he could not be sure he ever made that call.
Dwyer: “Well, did you regularly lie to Christian Ellis at that time to tell him you were doing some things and not others?”
Perrottet: “I may have.” He told the commission he might have lied to sound supportive.
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Dwyer: “But you’ve now told us, Mr Perrottet that you lied to Jean Nassif, you sometimes lied in politics for various things, and then you lied to your close friend Christian Ellis.
“And I suggest that actually the fabrication is the evidence you’re giving to the commission because you want to make it sound like you didn’t take the active steps that are clearly set down in this text.”
Perrottet responded: “No.”
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Alexandra Smith is a senior writer and former state political editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.Jessica McSweeney is a reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald covering state politics and urban affairs.Connect via email.AdvertisementAdvertisement