Updated ,first published
Disgraced Sydney property developer Jean Nassif tasked his “powerful buddy” and senior Liberal Party operative Charles Perrottet to help clear the way for a stalled apartment tower, according to phone taps played at a major corruption inquiry.
Entering its ninth week of public hearings on Monday, the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Operation Rosny investigation for the first time heard a previously secret telephone conversation between Nassif and his senior executive Sharangan Maheswaran.
In the June 15, 2021 phone tap, a furious Nassif can be heard complaining about a decision by building commissioner David Chandler to place a “prohibition notice” over the developer’s Skyview apartment tower in Castle Hill, throwing the project’s completion date into doubt.
“I’m speaking to f—ing Charles [Perrottet] and Michael Photios to try to stop it but he’s already issued it, the c–t,” Nassif tells Maheswaran.
“We’re gonna see how to revoke it right away. Otherwise, I’m gonna f–k him sideways.”
Photios, a long-time Liberal moderate powerbroker, runs the government relations firm Premier National. Charles Perrottet, a younger brother of former premier Dominic Perrottet, is a senior BP executive based in Melbourne but repeatedly met Nassif and advised him.
The ICAC believes Perrottet was ultimately paid up to $660,000 for work he did to advance Nassif’s building projects and other political schemes.
Nassif had an intense hatred for the scrutiny Chandler applied to his Toplace development projects and devised plans to get the commissioner to back off.
Maheswaran said the tapped call showed Nassif “making his normal threats”. Asked why those threats did not trigger any alarm bells, Maheswaran said he would prefer Nassif call Charles Perrottet or Photios rather than the building commissioner himself.
“He regarded Mr Perrottet to be his powerful buddy,” Maheswaran said.
Maheswaran was a senior executive for Toplace before the company collapsed in mid-2023 with debts of up to $2 billion. The lawyer was also a Labor member of Strathfield Council for most of the time he worked for Nassif.
The lawyer last week said he would have earned about $1.4 million while working at Toplace between July 2020 and March 2023. The inquiry heard on Monday that Maheswaran had given Nassif a secret phone in mid-to-late 2020, to be used exclusively for communication between the pair.
Giving evidence at the ICAC for a second day, Maheswaran also denied lying to the corruption watchdog over how a large cheque came to be given to Charles Perrottet earlier in 2021.
The Operation Rosny probe has previously heard that Perrottet sent a text to Nassif in January 2021 asking to pick up “assistance” for “upcoming preselections”.
Maheswaran denied handing the cheque over, leading counsel assisting the commission Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, to accuse him of lying.
“Mr Maheswaran, isn’t this the true situation: that you are lying to the commission about that because it’s a pretty bad look that a member of the Labor Party, as you were then, was handing over a cheque from a property developer to a Liberal Party operative,” Dwyer said.
He replied: “I reject that, and I also reject the reason behind it.
“I’m here for one purpose, and one purpose only: to comply with the ICAC Act.”
Dwyer also accused him of lying during Monday’s evidence over his attendance at a Liberal Party fundraiser in April 2021. His ticket to the function cost $990 – just below the threshold requiring the names of donors to be publicly disclosed.
When Liberal MP Ray Williams gave a speech to parliament in 2022 accusing party operatives of stacking branches with the assistance of Nassif, Maheswaran asked Liberal Party apparatchik Christian Ellis via text message: “Oh shit, did [Williams] touch on me?”
Asked why he was worried he could have featured in Williams’ speech, Maheswaran said he feared it could be “misconstrued” that his attendance at the Liberal Party function was on behalf of Toplace. Toplace is a prohibited donor because it is a development company.
Maheswaran also messaged his Labor colleague on Strathfield Council Karen Pensabene that the allegations aired in parliament could cause “problems”.
“I haven’t done anything wrong, but just standing too close,” he wrote. “I think it should be fine but it looks bad.”
Dwyer said the messages showed he looked “pretty panicked” about his involvement in funds from Nassif being used to support Liberal Party branch-stacking in Sydney.
The ICAC is also investigating Maheswaran for dishonestly or partially exercising his official functions as a Labor councillor as part of a blackmail plot at Strathfield Council. The watchdog is also examining whether he committed blackmail offences and breaches of the Surveillance Devices Act.
The ICAC last week heard evidence that Maheswaran unleashed an intimidation and blackmail campaign against the then mayor, Matthew Blackmore, to drive him from the top job in early 2023. Maheswaran was keen for his Labor ally Pensabene to become mayor.
Pensabene is also being investigated by the ICAC for potential offences but has been excused from giving evidence at public hearings due to a medical condition.
Dominic Perrottet is not accused of any wrongdoing.
The inquiry continues.
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Bevan Shields is a senior writer, and former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
Alexandra Smith is a senior writer and former state political editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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