ICAC lawyer tells Charles Perrottet: ‘The key to lying is that you have to be really good at remembering it’

Charles Perrottet told New South Wales’ corruption watchdog that he invented an update for a property developer, then denied that he had lied to the commission about it.

Perrottet, the brother of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, said he had “made up” information for Jean Nassif, a property developer linked to the Toplace company. The evidence came during a hearing by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which is examining allegations involving three Liberal figures and $2 million in prohibited political donations.

“

Ultimately, I made it up.

The message under scrutiny concerned three Toplace developments. It included the words “189 spoke to my PDU contact”. The commission heard that 189 referred to a Toplace development in Parramatta and PDU to the NSW Planning Delivery Unit. Perrottet said he had no contact there and had made no call.

“

At times, I would add my own political flavour to it to keep him on side.

“Ultimately, I made it up,” Perrottet told the hearing. He said he regularly misled Nassif about his own role in lobbying work carried out for Toplace by Beckington, a company controlled by Christian Ellis and Jeremy Greenwood. Perrottet said he sometimes added “political flavour” to updates to keep Nassif on side.

Counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer SC, suggested that Perrottet had promised Nassif political outcomes in return for money. Perrottet rejected the comparison with an arrangement he had accused another Liberal faction of using to avoid electoral funding rules. He insisted that payments from Nassif were for genuine services and were not political donations. Dominic Perrottet is not a person of interest and has not been accused of wrongdoing.

“

You wanted to get on board the money train, didn’t you?