In July 2018, a group of young Sydney Liberal party members calling themselves the Reformers were riding high.
“Great News, God has granted us a victory and we have officially taken the Coffs Harbour branch away from the left wing,” Robert Assaf, one of the Reformers co-founders, wrote in an email to a newly recruited Liberal party member.
He signed off: “In Christ, Robert Assaf.”
A few days earlier, Christian Ellis messaged a fellow Reformer, Jean-Claude Perrottet, with the same good news: “Won Coffs.”
“Fuck yeah,” Perrottet wrote back.
In the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s investigation into an allegation that the conservative Christian factional group took illegal political donations to recruit or renew members to the New South Wales Liberal party, recovered SMS, WhatsApp and encrypted messages have taken centre stage. Assaf and Perrottet have denied any wrongdoing, while Ellis has moved to the UK and did not give evidence during the 10 weeks of public hearings which concluded on Tuesday.
The messages chart how a group of young men, some barely out of high school, quickly gained the attention of some of the country’s most powerful conservative politicians, only to became the focus of a major corruption investigation.
The messages offer an insight into a group that was at once a shadowy, political faction hungry for influence, and a boys’ group chat trash-talking and meeting up for beers. They show how the Reformers formed, how they operated – and ultimately, how they ended.
The plan to seize control
As Assaf told Icac, the Reformers were “twentysomething-year-old guys dreaming big”.
Assaf and Ellis, former parliamentary staffers who are now 30 and 34 respectively, started the group in 2017 after meeting as members of the no campaign for the same-sex marriage plebiscite.
They were horrified by the direction the Liberal party had taken. “We are losing the Culture War and it is OUR fault,” they wrote in an early draft document. “The marriage plebiscite showed that conservatives are now the silent minority.”
Deciding that the Liberal party was still their best vehicle for change, they hatched a plan to add 5,000 Christian conservatives to the 10,000 members in NSW and take “control of the NSW division of the Liberal party”. Their goals included more conservative policies on issues including marriage, gender equality, abortion and euthanasia.
In 2018 the Reformers expanded to include Jean-Claude Perrottet, now 29. The younger brother of the former state premier Dominic Perrottet – who is not accused of any wrongdoing and has not been named in Icac’s allegations – quickly developed a reputation as a star recruiter of new members to branches the Reformers wanted to control. The practice, known as branch stacking, is not itself illegal.
But when he gave evidence to Icac, Perrottet downplayed the glamour of the Reformers’ daily work. “Going to branch meetings is like having a cup of tea with some people from the bowling club,” he said.
21/03/2020
Jean-Claude Perrottet Meeting being teed up with you
Jean-Claude Perrottet And this guy and me and Damien
Christian Ellis Thank you!
Christian Ellis That’s awesome
Jean-Claude Perrottet Former owner of ray white
Jean-Claude Perrottet From Mitchell
Christian Ellis Sweet
Christian Ellis Keen
Christian Ellis What does he do now?
Jean-Claude Perrottet He is very old
Jean-Claude Perrottet So who knows
Jean-Claude Perrottet Supposed really Christian or Catholic
Christian Ellis Good good
Jean-Claude Perrottet Need to find out if he is hawke but first meeting is about reformers suss him out then have a closer meeting you me and him hopefully
Jean-Claude Perrottet See what comes form it
Christian Ellis Sounds good
Christian Ellis Very wealthy?
Christian Ellis Would he support reformers?
While the Reformers presented a mostly professional front in recruitment materials and emails to new members and potential donors, their WhatsApp group chats took a more youthful tone.
“Hi Michael,” Assaf wrote to a donor, Michael O’Hara, now 83, in February 2019. “It was great catching up with you and providing you an update on our activities. Thank you very much for your offer of $15k.” O’Hara, a hotelier who had been introduced to the group by the NSW upper house Liberal Damien Tudehope, does not deny payments but disputes that they were political donations, which would be prohibited. Tudehope was not named as a person of interest in Icac’s allegations.
But in a 2020 WhatsApp message from Perrottet to Assaf and Ellis, O’Hara and another alleged donor, Martin Flood, became “old mate Damien’s mate” and “Marty Money”.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailThe youngest of the Reformers, Dylan Whitelaw, described Flood to the inquiry as “a gentleman that had … like, literally won the lottery and had similar conservative ideals”. Whitelaw, now 25, is not named as a person of interest in Icac’s allegations.
Flood hadn’t won the lottery – Guardian Australia understands that he is the same Martin Flood who in 2005 became the second winner of the jackpot on the Australian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He was not named in Icac’s allegations and is not accused of any wrongdoing. Flood did not respond to Guardian Australia’s inquiries.
One alleged donor, the Catholic Schools NSW chief executive, Dallas McInerney, 53, tried to meet the Reformers at their level. When Whitelaw wrote that he and Perrottet were organising a Young Liberals “pizza and beer and a bit of a call centre/phone banking” in July 2022, he wrote back: “Want me to drop by?”
McInerney, who denied making prohibited donations through Catholic Schools NSW, faced scrutiny at Icac over a WhatsApp message he sent to Assaf about a plan to “shake down Angus for 10K”. Angus Taylor, the federal Liberal leader, is not named as a person of interest in Icac’s allegations and has repeatedly denied making payments to the Reformers.
McInerney was sacked in August, days after telling the commission he had performed a factory reset on his phone after a security alert from his bank. He accepted that the reset had potentially erased critical evidence, including messages between him and the Reformers.
The growing web
One figure has loomed largest over Icac’s inquiry: the now-fugitive property developer Jean Nassif.
For the Reformers and their associates, Nassif was part of the beginning of the end.
In June 2022 NSW police sent intercepted communications between Nassif, Perrottet and another Perrottet brother, Charles, now 42, to the corruption watchdog. The next day the Liberal MP Ray Williams alleged that Nassif had paid “significant funds” to get new councillors elected to the Hills shire council to support developments by Nassif’s company, Toplace.
A day later Dominic Perrottet, then the premier, referred that allegation to Icac.
The inquiry examined the allegation that Ellis, the lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood and Charles Perrottet took $2m from Nassif or Toplace to support branch stacking and in exchange for political outcomes.
Charles Perrottet and Greenwood told the commission that the agreement was actually that the lobbying company Beckington, controlled by Ellis and Greenwood, would get $1m for every Toplace project they could get fast-tracked through legitimate work. This agreement, written on a Post-it note stored in a Toplace employee’s phone case, was allegedly worked out at meetings between Greenwood, Charles Perrottet and Nassif in December 2019.
“That meeting was insane haha,” Greenwood wrote to Ellis after one, adding he was “definitely not putting the contents in message haha”.
But soon after, the men were discussing the potential spoils of the agreement, the counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer SC suggested. Greenwood sent Ellis pictures of a Porsche and a Ferrari.
“So I actually think the 911,” Ellis wrote. “I don’t know. The top of the range one.”
“There’s something about a red Ferrari always,” Greenwood wrote back.
“That’s true too,” Ellis wrote. “That Ferrari is very nice. Very very nice.”
In a surprise two-day appearance at the commission from his Beirut bedroom, Nassif raged against allegations of corruption and claimed that he had left Australia to receive “an international award for number one businessman from [an] Arabic background”.
He rejected the idea that his money had been used for branch stacking by Ellis, Greenwood and Charles Perrottet, claiming: “My money is still in their account.”
But Greenwood, who told Icac Nassif had left them “high and dry” when he fled to Lebanon in 2022, was complaining about unpaid invoices from Toplace as early as December 2020. He asked Ellis if he had sent an invoice to Toplace executive Sharangan Maheswaran for payment from Nassif.
19/12/2020
Jeremy Greenwood I’m going to tell him I want fucking paid I’m sick of it
Jeremy Greenwood It’s actually embarrassing
Christian Ellis The invoice paid
Christian Ellis Surely he’ll direct debit
Christian Ellis Agreed
Christian Ellis It’s 400k
Jeremy Greenwood Good
Jeremy Greenwood Because Porsche comes in January and I’m getting worried
Jeremy Greenwood But it’s also just really disrespectful from him
Christian Ellis When’s the exact date? Or they haven’t updated
Jeremy Greenwood Arrives January 11
Christian Ellis How good
Jeremy Greenwood No
Jeremy Greenwood Not good if that fuckwit doesn’t pay
Jeremy Greenwood We can’t get access our term deposit till March 19
Jeremy Greenwood I had a go at Sharangan earlier
Jeremy Greenwood Not at him, but told him JN is fucking the relationship
During a rare, quiet moment in Nassif’s evidence, Dwyer said: “I don’t mean to be hurtful, Mr Nassif, but the person they’re referring to as a fuckwit there is you.”
Greenwood has insisted that he was not a member of the Reformers or involved in factional work, saying he was a passive member of many group chats.
“Me and [Jean-]Claude are probably in like 25 group chats, as you’d be aware,” he told Dwyer. At another moment, he was reprimanded after he told an Icac staff member sitting in the gallery: “You’ve been through my emails. Don’t give me that look.”
But Dwyer argued that he had played an active role in discussions about Reformers work. After Jean-Claude Perrottet wrote in September 2021 that he had convinced O’Hara to continue contributing to the Reformers, Greenwood wrote: “how’s your mouth taste.”
After Ellis wrote to him in 2019 about being caught speaking at a recruitment event by a parliamentary colleague, Greenwood wrote to him: “Btw it sounds like you’re at a gay bar but anyway.”
In one instance, a message Greenwood sent to Ellis about a parliamentary staffer was deemed so offensive that the presiding commissioner, Fabian Gleeson, made a non-publication order over what he described as a “racist remark”. Greenwood accepted that the message was highly offensive.
The messages that didn’t delete
Ultimately, the once-idealistic Reformers fell out over money. Assaf told Icac he became convinced his old friend Ellis was “getting rich” from payments for factional work, losing sight of the dreams they came up with together.
That saw the Reformers splinter into two group chats: one with Jean-Claude Perrottet, Greenwood and Assaf; the other with Jean-Claude Perrottet, Greenwood and Ellis. In the latter, the men complained about Assaf, and in the former, they complained about Ellis.
07/09/2021
Robert Assaf O’hara emailed ellis apparently saying he is no longer giving money to Reformers
Jeremy Greenwood Hahahaha really
Jeremy Greenwood Walls are really closing in on him aren’t they
Robert Assaf yep mostly seems because of stance on mandatory vacc
Jeremy Greenwood oh wow
Robert Assaf all good not like reformers saw a cent of his money recently anyways
Jeremy Greenwood Actually yeah did Christian phrase it as “to the reformers”
Jeremy Greenwood You should have played dumb “I haven’t checked the account for ages was he giving us money?”
Robert Assaf ellis may have to cancel the updated to his 5th Land Cruiser
Jeremy Greenwood Hahaha
Robert Assaf he said “us”
By early 2023, the mood was especially heavy. The Reformers were gearing up to avoid being served summons to appear at a parliamentary inquiry which preceded Icac’s investigation. Assaf told Icac that after he suggested that the group appear at the inquiry, believing they had “nothing to hide”, others began sending him rat emojis.
On 12 January 2023 Greenwood sent Jean-Claude Perrottet a message on WhatsApp.
“Hey so you know how I’m good to you and help you and give you your filthy schools money and put up with your fucking whining,” he wrote at 4.45pm.
Perrottet wrote back at 5pm: “Don’t put that in writing.”
Ten seconds later, Greenwood responded: “It deletes.”
As Greenwood sat in the Icac witness box in July, learning that while Perrottet had deleted the message, he had not – and instead it was among thousands the watchdog had recovered – he admitted: “I’m not sure how it works, to be honest.”
But by February 2023 the mood had lightened. Greenwood accepted an offer from Maheswaran, no stranger to a text message or a tarot reading, to place private security guards outside his home – writing to the private investigator organising them he wanted “no numpties” but “attentive ones”.
He’d also come up with his own ingenious idea. Jean-Claude Perrottet would go to Fiji to wait out the inquiry and Nassif would foot the bill while Perrottet negotiated a job at Catholic Schools NSW, making him the third Reformer to be employed there.
Over WhatsApp, Greenwood sent Perrottet a picture of his own American Express card so he could book a flight.
8/2/2023
Jean-Claude Perrottet Lol what am I going to do for 8 days
Jeremy Greenwood Relax
Jeremy Greenwood Read a book
Jeremy Greenwood Gym
Jeremy Greenwood Beers
Jeremy Greenwood Do some wedding planning
Jean-Claude Perrottet Haha yeah
Jean-Claude Perrottet This is so ridiculous
Jean-Claude Perrottet Pretty funny
Jeremy Greenwood It really is
Jeremy Greenwood It’s something you’ll look back and laugh about
Jean-Claude Perrottet Just hope they are not waiting for me tomorrow
Jeremy Greenwood Send food photos too
Jean-Claude Perrottet Ok also Dallas just asked how much pay do I expect
Jeremy Greenwood 180+
Jean-Claude Perrottet Just sent it
Jeremy Greenwood Haha
Jeremy Greenwood Assaf got didn’t he
Jeremy Greenwood So you get that
Jeremy Greenwood Plus you’re doing work haha
Eventually the Reformers group chats went quiet.
When Greenwood and Assaf met this year to discuss their summons before the corruption watchdog, Assaf told the commission the men had left their phones in the car.
Greenwood also admitted meeting Jean-Claude Perrottet at a pub in Sydney’s affluent Double Bay in June 2025, after an interview with Icac.
The inquiry heard that this time, the men had left their phones at another table.
Note: the messages in this article are graphic representations of communications released by Icac.
