Dominic Perrottet’s brother allegedly ‘ventilating dirt’ on fugitive developer’s adversaries, Icac hears

Charles Perrottet appeared to be furthering fugitive developer Jean Nassif’s interests by undermining adversaries, a former NSW MP claims

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Dominic Perrottet’s brother shared “dirt” – including a secret pocket phone recording of a minister – to try to help a property developer achieve political outcomes, lawyers assisting a corruption inquiry have alleged.

Former New South Wales Liberal MP and staffer Chris Spence told the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) on Monday that Charles Perrottet may have been acting in the interests of fugitive property developer Jean Nassif when Perrottet shared audio recordings with Spence in 2021, although he denied having knowledge of any plans Perrottet may have had at the time.

The watchdog is investigating whether Liberal figures, including the former Liberal premier’s younger brother Charles Perrottet, took donations from fugitive property developer Jean Nassif and his company Toplace in exchange for outcomes, such as the removal of the former building commissioner, David Chandler, and damage to the career of former NSW Liberal minister David Elliott.

Spence was the MP for The Entrance between 2011 and 2015. Between 2019 and 2023, he was chief of staff between to Liberal MP Anthony Roberts, who became planning minister in 2022.

On Monday morning, Spence was asked why Charles Perrottet had shared two audio files with him in 2021, when Roberts was corrections and counter-terrorism minister.

The first, shared in May 2021, allegedly included Nassif speaking to another person about an arrangement where Chandler would give him an occupation certificate for one of his developments in exchange for a large sum of money. Charles Perrottet shared the file to Spence along with copies of text messages requesting money be paid into a bank account.

Chandler, who will appear before the inquiry later this week, is not named as a person of interest, and is not accused of any wrongdoing.

The inquiry heard the second recording – shared in October 2021 – was a phone recording taken from someone’s pocket. It purportedly included Elliott criticising Dominic Perrottet, who was then about to become premier following Gladys Berejiklian’s October 2021 resignation. Last week, Elliott gave evidence to the inquiry that Nassif began to target him after he opposed his developments, including a controversial development in Cherrybrook in northern Sydney.

On Monday, counsel assisting, Juliet Curtin, asked: “Is that audio file being sent to you by Charles Perrottet not another example of Charles Perrottet ventilating dirt about Mr Nassif’s adversaries with you?”

“I don’t know that that mentions anything of Mr Nassif, but that certainly does show that yes, Charlie definitely doesn’t have a strong opinion of Mr Elliott,” said Spence.

Asked again if the files were examples of Charles Perrottet carrying out work to further Nassif’s interests, Spence said: “Upon reflection, it would look that way, but at the time, that wouldn’t have been my view.”

Spence claimed Charles Perrottet had contacted him about the alleged extortion attempt in the first message to ask him about a business near his former electorate referenced in messages. Perrottet later shared the purported recording of Elliott to ask for Spence’s help removing “background noise”, the inquiry heard.

On Monday, Spence described Charles Perrottet, who he said was a prominent member of the Liberals conservative right faction, as “very well respected, and intelligent … he was quite good at strategy”.

He rejected the suggestion the younger brother was a “conduit” to Dominic Perrottet, but said that “others would ring and complain and complain and complain, and Charlie would get frustrated not only at them, but also the fact that he just sometimes couldn’t talk to his brother.”

“There were things that the government did that he thought were silly, or that he would try and speak to his brother [about], but sometimes Dom would just be busy.”

‘Gaslit from day one’

Last week, former NSW fair trading minister Eleni Petinos told the commission she may have been used by fellow Liberals , including longtime friend Spence and Charles Perrotet to get rid of Chandler, recounting numerous attempts in 2022 to persuade her he was “dodgy” and should be sacked. Chandler resigned in July 2022 citing concerns with Petinos, who was sacked in that month amid bullying allegations.

Petinos’ chief of staff at the time, Cassandra Lawry, gave evidence to the commission that Spence showed her a video of Chandler claiming he had provided an informal list of dodgy certifiers to banks, as well as text messages relating to the alleged extortion attempt.

On Monday, Spence admitted to showing Lawry the video, which Charles Perrottet had given him, but not the text messages. He said that Perrottet had not asked him to do anything with the video.

Asked about frequent attempts he made to contact Petinos’ office in the days before the video was published by The Australian in 2022, Spence said: “I didn’t offer them any opinion or advice. I didn’t tell them to sack Chandler. I didn’t tell them to do anything other than: ‘Here’s a topic that you need to be on top of in case you get contacted by the newspaper’.”

In its first week, the inquiry heard evidence from Dylan Whitelaw, an associate of conservative Christian factional group the Reformers, who Spence employed as a staffer in Roberts’ office in 2022.

Whitelaw described hearing Spence say he planned to give the video of Chandler to Petinos to use in a budget estimates hearing, but later came back to say: “Eleni fucked it up.”

Spence denied this had happened, describing Whitelaw as “delusional”. Earlier at Monday, he hit out at Whitelaw, describing him as “one of the most untrustworthy, lying individuals I’ve met”.

He claimed Whitelaw, who was employed by Catholic Schools NSW and a Reformer-controlled lobbying firm before becoming a ministerial staffer, “gaslit our office from day one”, and held meetings with developers by himself against office practice.

“There were periods of time when Dylan just disappeared,” said Spence.

Spence, who denied being aware of who Nassif was when Charles Perrottet sent him audio files, said he did not recall a meeting marked “Spence – Cherrybrook” in Perrottet’s diary in February 2022, or what it would have been about.

“I think our office stayed well away from [Toplace’s Cherrybrook proposal], so I don’t know what Charlie was representing,” he said.

Charles Perrottet, who has previously denied any wrongdoing, will give evidence to the commission on Friday. Nassif, who fled Australia for rural Lebanon in 2022 and is not expected to appear before the commission, has previously denied any wrongdoing.