The late-night speech that blew apart the NSW Liberals

Just before the dinner break in mid-winter 2022, when NSW MPs were more focused on the menu in the Strangers’ Dining Room than what was being said in the lower house chamber, Liberal backbencher Ray Williams dropped a bomb.

The former minister and long-term ally of federal MP and powerbroker Alex Hawke used his allotted time for a private members’ statement to make the astonishing claim that his own colleagues in the Liberal Party were involved in systemic corruption.

Williams did not use the word corruption, but he did not need to. Anyone paying attention (and, at that point, there were not many) knew what he was alleging. His 690-word speech launched what would be a years-long investigation into the Liberal Party, developers and local government more broadly.

The next stage, a highly anticipated public inquiry, was on Wednesday confirmed by the corruption watchdog. Public hearings will start on July 29, with an extensive witness list that will include Liberals, councillors and even the Catholic schools.

Williams’ speech began with what sounded like a benign internal gripe about the machinations of his party. “An issue that I have raised previously in this House,” Williams’ speech started, “concerns the undemocratic political processes of the Liberal Party regarding the choice of candidates for the local government elections held in The Hills Shire during December 2021.”

At those elections, Williams detailed, the popularly elected mayor Michelle Byrne and six sitting Liberal councillors were replaced by the Liberals’ state executive (the governing arm of the party) “without the usual preselection processes normally afforded to such positions”.

Despite being “held in extremely high regard by my community”, Byrne and six of her party colleagues were dumped from the party’s ticket to make way for other Liberal candidates. “Their removal came as a complete shock,” Williams, whose seat of Kellyville encompasses the Hills council area, told parliament.

Williams went on to allege that fugitive property developer Jean Nassif met one-time Liberal heavyweight Christian Ellis and other senior members of the party. They, Williams claimed, “were paid significant funds” to install new councillors on The Hills Shire Council who would support Nassif’s future development applications.

Ellis, a lobbyist and former Liberal state executive member, had Nassif’s development company Toplace as one of his major clients, Williams said.

“If Christian Ellis, senior members of the Liberal Party, a former councillor and now member of the NSW Parliament, received financial benefit from Jean Nassif of Toplace … then my community has good reason to be very concerned,” Williams said.

One name that Williams did not divulge was that of the “now member of NSW Parliament”. He was referring to Robyn Preston, the MP for Hawkesbury who modelled as a Penthouse pet in the 1980s and ran for Liberal preselection more than 12 times before finally securing a nomination.

Williams claimed that Preston, who is not part of the inquiry announced on Wednesday, “actively supported” a 20-storey residential development proposed by Toplace, despite opposition from council staff, the community and the Department of Planning. She arranged meetings with council staff “together with Toplace consultants, speaking favourably during council meetings on behalf of the Toplace planning proposal and caucusing with Liberal councillors in order to obtain support for Toplace”, Williams told parliament.

And, Williams pointed out, one of the newly elected councillors, Virginia Ellis, was employed as Preston’s electorate officer and “incidentally is the mother of Christian Ellis”.

“Needless to say, these are very serious allegations,” Williams said.

Williams’ June 21, 2022, speech to parliament ended with little fanfare but included a veiled warning. “I will have more to say about these matters in the future.”

The next morning, then-Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet referred Williams’ claims to the Independent Commission Against Corruption. “Late last night I was made aware of allegations made … earlier in the evening and under parliamentary privilege,” Perrottet said.

“I immediately requested advice from the Department of Premier and Cabinet, which I received this morning. The advice stated that it would be appropriate to bring the matters raised to the attention of the ICAC, which I have now done.”

On Wednesday, after the confirmation of the explosive ICAC probe, which is even more extensive than Williams envisaged, the MP said he felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

“It’s almost four years to the day that I made those comments, something I never enjoyed doing but I knew that there were people the Liberal Party that, I believed, were doing the wrong thing,” Williams told the Herald.

“Today I feel vindicated that ICAC will now go through and thoroughly investigate those allegations and many more that I was never aware of. People doing the wrong thing have no place in any political party and certainly should play no role in choosing representatives in for parliament.”