Anita Perrottet Rejects ICAC Suggestion She Lied Under Oath to Protect Husband Over Alleged Donation Conduit Role
Anita Perrottet, sister-in-law of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, told the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption on 26 August 2026 that hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments she received were for "strategic and marketing advice," rejecting counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer SC's suggestion that she had been placed in an "impossible situation" and lied under oath to cover for her husband, Charles Perrottet. "I reject that. I'm not lying," Anita Perrottet told the hearing The Guardian.
The testimony came as part of Operation Rosny, ICAC's public inquiry into whether between 2020 and 2023 Christian Ellis, Jeremy Greenwood and Charles Perrottet took prohibited political donations from fugitive property developer Jean Nassif and his company Toplace. The inquiry, which commenced on 27 July 2026 at the ICAC Public Hearing Room in Sydney, is investigating possible offences under the Electoral Funding Act and is anticipated to run for eight weeks ICAC. ICAC is also examining whether the Reformers, a factional grouping, solicited or accepted illegal donations for member recruitment or renewal The Guardian.
Dwyer told the inquiry that evidence would suggest Anita Perrottet functioned as a "conduit" for payments totalling $661,000, a figure she said equated to her husband's alleged share of funds the three men anticipated receiving. The total anticipated across the three was $2 million, to be distributed evenly The Guardian.
The financial mechanics are granular. Anita Perrottet, who had worked in financial-sector communications and ran the alcohol delivery company Deliver Me Drinks, became sole director and shareholder of Macquarie Consulting when it was incorporated in August 2020. She testified that she provided verbal advice to Beckington, a firm run by Ellis and Greenwood, and to JPG Advisory, run by Greenwood, under a "flexible arrangement" with no written proposal. Beckington paid her a $10,000 monthly retainer for what she described as 15 to 20 hours of work per week, and she was ultimately paid up to $333,500 by Beckington. A further $254,500 came from JPG Advisory for verbal advice in a single quarter ending January 2022 The Guardian.
The payments followed a pattern that drew scrutiny. After the first 12 months, Anita Perrottet was paid in three lump sums totalling $170,500, triggered by an invoice of $150,000 sent by her husband Charles, which included a $30,000 finder's fee. In July 2021, Charles Perrottet sent a message to Christian Ellis reading "just sent you back the updated invoices." Anita Perrottet told the inquiry Charles would have done this at her request The Guardian.
Her testimony about the substance of her advisory work raised further questions. She could recall only one client from her time at Beckington: Greyhound Racing NSW, an entity she acknowledged she had never watched race at the time she provided advice The Guardian.
The broader context here matters for several reasons. The inquiry touches two of NSW's most politically sensitive fault lines simultaneously: the regulation of political donations under the Electoral Funding Act, and the internal factional machinery of the state Liberal Party. The Reformers, the factional grouping under scrutiny, have drawn ICAC's attention over whether membership recruitment was underwritten by prohibited donations. The Perrottet family name, given Dominic Perrottet's tenure as premier, intensifies public attention on every detail of the evidence.
The evidentiary architecture ICAC is assembling appears designed to test whether the payment structures can be reconciled with genuine commercial activity or whether they served as a passthrough mechanism. The absence of written proposals, the invoicing chain running through Charles Perrottet rather than Anita directly, the concentration of payments in single quarters, and the inability to identify clients beyond a single racing body all form a pattern counsel assisting is inviting the commissioner to weigh. Anita Perrottet's defence rests on the assertion that the advisory was real, delivered verbally, and compensated at market rates she considered appropriate.
What remains unresolved is whether the commissioner accepts that narrative or finds the aggregate of circumstantial detail, the $661,000 matching Charles Perrottet's alleged one-third share of the anticipated $2 million, more persuasive. The inquiry has several weeks of scheduled hearings remaining.
