ICAC’s Operation Rosny inquiry is a council takeover they couldn’t ignore

In the bitchy and vindictive arena of NSW politics, the Independent Commission Against Corruption is the biggest generator of gossip.

In the shadow world in which the anti-corruption watchdog operates, it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction. Political operatives often swear that a particular dissident is under investigation, but their theories fail. Others have intelligence that proves their accuracy. Approximately 3,500 mandatory and voluntary referrals are made to ICAC annually, each of which creates some degree of suspicion and speculation. ICAC cannot forensically examine all of them.

But on June 24, 2022, ICAC was given a heated take: NSW Liberal Party apparatchiks and perhaps even sitting MPs were allegedly involved in branch stacking and donation schemes that could have helped a dodgy developer gain council approvals for major apartment projects through the Hills Shire Council. Operation Rosny was born. The tip has kept the ICAC and the rumor mill busy ever since.

“Everybody knows ICAC is looking at us,” said a senior Liberal who was not authorized to speak publicly. reporter This week. “And everyone knows this is not a standard investigation. There’s dirt at ICAC, and there’s truckloads of dirt.”

As its work ramps up in 2024 and 2025, ICAC processed 46.1 terabytes of research data in 12 months; this was a largely meaningless measurement until you realized that just one terabyte contained 6.5 million pages of documents and 500 hours of video. What the commission was working on was something big. The annual data volume was expected to reach 80 terabytes last month as researchers juggled Rosny and several smaller probes.

The agency also issued 152 subpoenas in the 2024-25 fiscal year, compared to just 37 in the previous year. The use of search warrants has more than doubled, and applications for access to suspects’ telecommunications data have increased by 62 percent. The ICAC is also looking into other corruption allegations involving Parramatta City Council, NSW Schools Infrastructure and Transport for NSW, but Rosny has captured most of its attention. There is constant talk in Parliament House of compulsory interrogations at ICAC’s offices on Elizabeth Street.

Many other signs appeared along the way: raids on potential suspects; an aborted parliamentary inquiry into the saga; Three dirty files on a far-right Christian group called the Reformers; illegal recordings and the ICAC’s fight to change the law to make them permissible; and shrewd real estate developer Jean Nassif is hiding abroad and not facing the music back home.

On Wednesday the commission announced it would hold public hearings into the whole sordid affair, promising to turn years of rumors and insinuations into findings that could land some senior figures in prison cells and blast the state’s Liberal Party months after the March 2027 NSW election.

“If I were to look into my crystal ball, I’d say there are at least three shadow ministers who won’t be up for election; potentially there could be five if I get mischievous and speculate,” the former Liberal cabinet minister said. David Elliott told 2GB on Thursday. “And there will be a few confirmed candidates who won’t make it through the next few months.”

The ICAC will be blowtorching some lesser-known but highly influential figures in the NSW Liberal Party between August and September. The eight-week hearings promise to be a monitoring event to rival the watchdog’s public flaming of Gladys Berejiklian throughout 2021.

The commission will investigate whether Liberal operatives Christian Ellis, Jeremy Greenwood, Robert Assaf and Jean-Claude Perrottet “solicited or accepted political donations, including from prohibited donors” in amounts that were undeclared and exceeded donation limits.

Two Strathfield Labor councillors, Sharangan Maheswaran and Karen Pensabene, were also included in the investigation due to their possible links to Nassif.

ICAC will also examine whether the donations were made by or on behalf of Jean Nassif and his company Toplace, who are considered prohibited donors, and whether they were “solicited or accepted” by Ellis, Greenwood and Charles, another member of the Perrottet family.

Jean-Claude and Charles are the brothers of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, who has not been charged with any offences.

The grant scheme may have been used to damage the political career of Elliott, a former Liberal provincial transport minister, and trigger the firing of then-building commissioner David Chandler, or at least prevent him from reviewing substandard Toplace projects. Chandler steps down as building commissioner in late 2024, and many believe he has important information that will be disclosed at ICAC in the coming months.

The commission will also investigate whether Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney used money from his organization to support alleged branch hoarding schemes. McInerney was sidelined Thursday amid the fallout.

In an indication of how close many of the key players were, Jean-Claude Perrottet had been on the NSW Catholic Schools payroll for more than two years as head of communications. John Perrottet, father of Jean-Claude and Charles, is on the board of directors. Greenwood, one of the commission’s other contacts, is a registered lobbyist for the church and schools branch. Another ICAC target, Robert Assaf, also once worked in NSW Catholic Schools.

The aim of the alleged illegal donations and branch hoarding scheme was likely twofold: to fill the local government with councilors more likely to support the Toplace construction projects, and for the Liberal Party’s far-right faction to gain control of the organisation’s governing body, the state government and branches in Sydney’s north-west, where the party remains locked in a bitter factional war.

Exactly how the alleged donation schemes worked, how the allegations were covered up, how much money was involved and what decisions that money may have influenced at Hills Shire Council and other organizations will only become clear once the ICAC begins public hearings.

The commission released an explosive statement at 9.55am confirming the public hearings of Operation Rosny as Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane toured a dog food factory in Sydney’s west on Wednesday. The timing of the inquiry – just six months before the state election – is a disaster for Sloane, who took over the leadership in November and is struggling with the popular premier of Chris Minns and his burgeoning One Nation party.

“This conduct, if proven, is absolutely reprehensible,” Sloane says of the allegations. “This has no place in the party I lead. I believe that MPs and members of our party are there to serve the interests of society, not to serve their own interests, not for political gains, not to score points, not for any of the behavior alleged by the ICAC.”

The Liberal Party is currently hunkered down, awaiting the hearings and inevitable conclusions. The scandal experienced its first political confusion on Friday afternoon when the opposition’s Legislative Council leader, Damien Tudehope, resigned from the front bench pending an investigation after being called as a witness.

Tudehope has not been charged with any crimes but has been linked to at least five key players involved. Tudehope resigned six hours later reporter sent him a series of questions about these connections.

He had been doing business for years with hotelier Michael O’Hara, who is accused by ICAC of potential misconduct as part of Operation Rosny. Christian Ellis once worked in Tudehope’s office. Tudehope is also close to McInerney and an important factional ally of Jean-Claude and Charles Perrottet.

Tudehope said testifying at ICAC would be a distraction for Sloane and the Liberals, adding: “After careful consideration, I spoke to Kellie Sloane earlier today and offered to step aside until the scheduled public hearings were completed.” “There is no allegation of wrongdoing on my part, and I am not under investigation.”

The party was first made aware of the Hills Shire Council allegations years ago, when Liberal MP Ray Williams, in a late-night speech to parliament, lifted the lid on what he said was widespread corruption within sections of his own party.

Williams said former popularly elected Hills Shire Council mayor Michelle Byrne and six incumbent Liberal councilors were removed by the party’s state leadership “without the usual preselection processes” and replaced by other Liberal candidates, including some who lived outside the area. One of the newly appointed Liberal councilors was Virginia Ellis, the mother of ICAC suspect Christian Ellis.

Speaking in parliament, Williams said: “It appears that Toplace’s Jean Nassif met with Christian Ellis and other senior members of the Liberal Party before the council election, who were paid significant sums of money to appoint new councilors to Hills Shire Council who would support future Toplace development applications.”

One of the projects put forward by Toplace at the time was the $250 million apartment tower known as Skyview. The plan ran into all sorts of difficulties, including scrutiny of Chandler as construction superintendent.

Williams also said he was told that a sitting MP was actively supporting the Toplace proposal, arranging meetings between Hills Shire staff and the company’s consultants and holding a meeting with Liberal councilors to gain support for Toplace. He did not name the MP but it is widely known that he was referring to the member for Hawkesbury, Robyn Preston. Preston is not part of the investigation announced Wednesday.

“It goes without saying that these are very serious allegations,” Williams said.

Then-prime minister Perrottet forwarded Williams’ midnight parliamentary allegations to the ICAC the next day – 24 June 2022. Just three months ago the ICAC had refused to investigate after being sent an anonymous dirty file titled The Men Who Stole the Hills. Justifying its earlier decision not to investigate, ICAC said the claim that new councilors might be more supportive of development did not constitute sufficient evidence for it to pursue the matter.

But Perrottet’s guidance, combined with the seriousness of Williams’ allegations in parliament, meant that the ICAC had no choice but to reconsider the matter.

When asked about Williams’ speech, Byrne, the Hills Shire Council mayor, stood down to make way for new candidates and told the parliamentary inquiry he had no evidence that money had changed hands. “Something tells me the same thing happened; I can’t prove it,” he said. “I really think the only institution that can do this is ICAC.”

Public hearings for Operation Rosny will begin on July 27.

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