A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry examining allegations of “impropriety” against a suburban Sydney council and property developers says it will hire private contractors to track down key witnesses who are “failing to cooperate” with the inquiry, including two of Dominic Perrottet’s brothers, in an extraordinary bid to force them to answer questions at a public hearing.
On Tuesday an upper house committee examining the “role and influence of developers and their interactions with councillors and members of parliament” at the Hills Shire council took the unusual step of saying it would contract a private firm to issue Charles and Jean-Claude Perrottet with formal summons to appear.
In a statement on Tuesday the committee’s chair, Greens MP Sue Higginson, said that despite “multiple attempts” by parliamentary staff to contact the Perrottet brothers and two other potential witnesses – the Liberal party powerbroker Christian Ellis and his mother, the Hills Shire councillor Virginia Ellis – they had been “unsuccessful”.
“I can only reach the conclusion that they are making a deliberate decision to avoid appearing before the committee,” she said.
“The committee is extremely disappointed in the actions of these individuals in failing to come forward and cooperate.”
Committees have the power to compel a member of the public to give evidence via summons. A person who has received a summons but refuses to give evidence without a reasonable excuse risks being taken into custody.
The inquiry is examining the “role and influence of developers and their interactions with councillors and members of parliament” in Sydney’s north-west, after explosive allegations aired by the Liberal party MP Ray Williams in parliament last year.
Williams told parliament senior members of the NSW Liberal party had been “paid significant funds” to install new councillors to support development applications by a company known as Toplace, owned by Sydney developer Jean Nassif.
“Allegations have been raised with me that senior people within the NSW Liberal party, a member of the Liberal party state executive and former Hills councillor, were supported financially at the time by a large developer by the name of Jean Nassif,” Williams told the parliament.
He claimed the payments were designed in exchange for support for a proposed development around the Cherrybrook Metro station.
Nassif, who is currently in a rural part of Lebanon, wrote to the committee last week asking it to delay the hearings while denying he had paid anyone to “undertake any actions regarding preselections or any similar actions”.
He denied the allegations raised by Williams in parliament, and said he had not met with any current councillors on the Hills Shire council.
In a follow-up letter published by the committee on Tuesday, Nassif left open the possibility of appearing at the inquiry’s hearings remotely if he could be afforded parliamentary privilege.
In the statement published on Tuesday, Higginson said the “failure to cooperate” by both Perrottet brothers and Christian and Virginia Ellis showed a “blatant disregard” for parliamentary process.
She also revealed the committee had decided to “step up its efforts” to contact them by “engaging professional process servers to serve the summonses”.
“We again call on each one of them to do the right thing and come forward,” she said.
She noted that while it had issued invites to both Jean-Claude Perrottet and Christian and Virginia Ellis that weren’t responded to, the committee had been unable to contact Charles Perrottet and believed he was interstate.
Minutes published by the committee on Tuesday also revealed Williams and the retiring transport minister, David Elliott, had been invited to appear at the inquiry but had so far refused.
Nassif, in his first letter to the inquiry, accused Elliott of seeking to “discredit internal opponents … by association with me with a view for Mr Elliott to retain his seat in parliament”.
Elliott was contacted for comment.
At a press conference on Tuesday Perrottet said he had not spoken to his brothers about the summons, and accused Labor and the Greens of “playing politics a month out from an election”.
“Obviously that’s a matter for the parliamentary inquiry, what I would say about Labor and the Greens is they want to play politics, we’re out here delivering for the people of NSW,” the premier said.
“They want to throw mud, what we want to do is transform our state for our children and their children.”
Due to commence public hearings on Wednesday, the inquiry has the potential to be an embarrassing distraction for the Coalition as it seeks a fourth term in power at the state election next month.
