The Independent Commission Against Corruption is investigating claims fugitive property developer Jean Nassif colluded with political powerbrokers to install local councillors who allegedly favoured the developer’s interests in Sydney.
The claims were sparked by a takeover of Hills Shire Council in a right-wing branch-stacking operation by NSW Liberals that saw moderates, including the mayor, dumped in 2021.
The corruption allegations were denied by key Liberals, including former party heavyweight Christian Ellis and Charles and Jean-Claude Perrottet, brothers of then-premier Dominic Perrottet.
But other councils were soon swept up in allegations of attempted bribery and claims Nassif had made secret recordings of politicians to blackmail them.
Nassif’s company Toplace collapsed in 2023, leaving ripped-off home owners, unpaid creditors and numerous shoddily constructed apartment complexes in its wake. Nassif, who denies any wrongdoing, fled to Lebanon.
The precise breadth and scope of the ICAC investigation had long been speculated about but it was revealed on Wednesday.
The property mogul
Nassif had been building his construction empire around Sydney since establishing Toplace in 1990s, but he first came to the public’s attention in 2019 thanks to a bright yellow Lamborghini.
A viral, much-parodied video posted on social media showed Nassif’s wife Nisserine being presented with the $480,000 vehicle as the developer says, “Congratulations Mrs Nassif – you like?”
Behind the developer’s gaudy displays of personal wealth, cracks were appearing in the Nassif brand.
In 2019, he pleaded guilty to cocaine possession after being caught entering Star City Casino with the drug, but no conviction was recorded.
In 2021, he allegedly supplied 10 kilograms of the drug ice and encrypted phones to drug mules, according to court documents.
A warrant for Nassif’s arrest in relation to an alleged bank fraud was issued in June 2023, but by then he was already overseas in rural Lebanon.
ICAC says it will investigate whether political donations were made by or on behalf of Nassif and Toplace in exchange for “the pursuit of outcomes”, including damage to the political career of former Liberal minister David Elliott and the sacking of the then building commissioner David Chandler.
The political operators
A group of Liberal Party members calling themselves the Reformers were engaged in branch-stacking in 2018 to advance the party’s right wing at the expense of moderates.
Their funding sources were opaque, but they allegedly used a database of “No” voters from the same-sex marriage referendum to recruit potential members and held events with speakers including Tony Abbott and Alan Jones.
Kellyville MP Ray Williams – a Liberal moderate – used parliamentary privilege in 2022 to allege Nassif had paid “significant funds” to Reformer Christian Ellis – then a lobbyist who had listed Toplace as a client – and others to build support for the developers’ plans.
Williams suggested a branch-stacking operation in Sydney’s Hills council area that removed six moderates and replaced them with councillors from the Right may have been funded by cash from Nassif.
A NSW upper house inquiry was unable to get to the bottom of the allegations, partly because several key witnesses, including Ellis, refused to show up and give evidence.
One witness at the inquiry, businessman Frits Mare, did disclose that Ellis had approached him asking for $50,000 to unseat federal MP Alex Hawke – a proposal Mare said he quickly declined.
ICAC says it will investigate whether Ellis, Jeremy Greenwood, Robert Assaf and Jean-Claude Perrottet solicited or accepted political donations, including from prohibited donors, in amounts that were not declared and exceeded caps. It will also investigate Charles Perrottet.
The powerful schools boss
One of the biggest surprises from Wednesday’s ICAC announcement was that it would investigate Catholic Schools NSW chief executive officer Dallas McInerney as part of Operation Rosny.
McInerney is a powerful figure in the state’s education sector and has at times been mooted as a potential candidate for the Liberal Party at various elections.
ICAC says it will investigate whether Catholic Schools NSW made political donations – in amounts that were not declared and exceeded donation cap – to help the recruitment or renewal of Liberal Party members. ICAC claims the payments may have been “arranged and approved” by McInerney.
Faulty towers
As the Reformers were making their moves, the Toplace empire was beginning to crumble.
Severe defects were detected in the company’s Skyview complex in the Hills district and the Vicinity complex in Canterbury, including cracked concrete and water leaks.
In Parramatta, Toplace’s huge Macquarie Towers project stalled after inspectors found it had been dug three levels deeper than permitted and had not been waterproofed.
The company was up for at least $152 million in defective building work, and authorities cancelled its building licence in July 2023.
Toplace was placed in administration, and investigators wading through the company’s finances found “interrelated company loans, creditors, and payments from Bankstown to Beirut”.
The Strathfield councillors
ICAC has also been quietly investigating the role of Strathfield Labor councillors Sharangan Maheswaran and Karen Pensabene in the saga.
The corruption watchdog’s public hearings are expected to hear evidence in realtion to whether the pair engaged in conduct towards fellow Strathfield councillor Matthew Blackmore “that involves the dishonest or partial exercise of their official functions and/or a breach of public trust”.
ICAC said this included conduct which could involve blackmail, and possible breaches of the Surveillance Devices Act.
Maheswaran is a lawyer who has acted for Toplace and Nassif. The Herald revealed he had his phone and laptop seized at Sydney Airport in March 2023. The seizure occurred just days after dramatic police raids on Nassif’s Sydney home and office.
“I am astounded that police now claim a power to seize personal electronic devices when no crime is being committed,” he told the Herald at the time. “We hope to resolve this matter in a proper court of law.”
In April 2021, Maheswaran and another Toplace executive, David Krepp, met the then-building commissioner David Chandler and his staff over problems Toplace was having with regulators.
Chandler told a parliamentary hearing the following year that Toplace read an email they claimed to have received with “what they called a shakedown”.
The email suggested that if Toplace paid $5 million into a trust account, “they could make the building commissioner go away on Skyview”.
Chandler told parliament, “I don’t know what substance abuse they might have been on to suddenly believe that might have worked …”
Maheswaran was elected to Strathfield City Council in December 2021 and continued to do consultancy work for Nassif since. He is no longer on the council.
Pensabene, a former Strathfield Citizen of the Year and one-time mayor, remains on the council. She has also been the president of Labor’s Strathfield branch.
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Ben Cubby is an investigative reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.
