Jean-Claude Perrottet, the 29-year-old younger brother of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, appeared before ICAC on 5 August 2026 and admitted under questioning that he conducted factional work during office hours while employed as a staffer in Damien Tudehope's electoral and ministerial offices in 2018 and 2019. His admission came on day eight of Operation Rosny, the commission's public inquiry into whether members of a conservative right faction group called the Reformers solicited or accepted illegal political donations to fund Liberal Party member recruitment and renewal.

ICAC opened Operation Rosny on 27 July 2026, laying out two principal matters for investigation. The first concerns whether Reformers, including Jean-Claude Perrottet, solicited or accepted donations, including from prohibited donors, in amounts that were not declared. The second examines whether political donations were made by or on behalf of property developer Jean Nassif and his company Toplace between approximately 2020 and 2023. The commission has published transcripts for the opening day and for the 4 August hearing on its website.

The Reformers, founded by Christian Ellis and Robert Assaf, recruited Jean-Claude Perrottet in 2018, three years after he joined the Liberal Party. The group pursued more conservative positions on same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia. Perrottet told the inquiry the Reformers signed up "like-minded people" partly to influence preselections, and admitted the group placed recruits in branches not controlled by the right faction — what he called "dodgy" branches controlled by rival factions. Branch stacking itself is not illegal in New South Wales. The alleged offence lies in the funding: ICAC heard on 4 August that a donation made to or for the benefit of the Liberal Party specifically to fund recruitment activities would have to be declared as a political donation under electoral funding law.

On the opening day's afternoon session, a witness acknowledged giving $25,000 to assist the work of Ellis and Assaf. During the 4 August hearing, a witness confirmed that Christian Ellis was contacting Liberal Party members, including Jean-Claude Perrottet, on their behalf. The afternoon transcript of that same day records questioning about whether a witness was aware of a method for attracting wealthy donors to the Liberal Party.

Damien Tudehope, the NSW shadow attorney general and Liberal leader in the upper house, has stepped aside from his shadow cabinet roles during the inquiry. Tudehope appeared before ICAC on 4 August, where he told counsel assisting Juliet Curtin he did not know that donations made by a friend could have breached electoral funding laws. He also gave evidence that Jean-Claude Perrottet had a "talent" for recruiting and renewing Liberal Party members, which Tudehope said was essential for any Liberal member seeking to keep their seat at preselection.

The connection between Tudehope and Jean-Claude Perrottet is now central to the political fallout. Tudehope employed Perrottet as a staffer in both his electoral and ministerial offices. Under questioning from Curtin, Perrottet admitted doing factional work during those office hours. Tudehope also admitted to leaking a confidential draft report from the 2023 parliamentary inquiry that preceded Operation Rosny to fellow Reformer Jeremy Greenwood in February 2023. That parliamentary inquiry sought to examine the same branch-stacking and recruitment conduct now under ICAC investigation. Perrottet was among the Reformers who avoided a summons to appear before it.

Tudehope told ICAC on 4 August that he had discussed with Dominic Perrottet the fact that Jean-Claude was in Fiji during the 2023 parliamentary inquiry — an explanation for the younger Perrottet's non-appearance. NSW Liberal leader Kellie Sloane said on 5 August that she would reserve any decision about Tudehope's future until the conclusion of the ICAC inquiry.

Sloane's caution is politically understandable but leaves the Liberals exposed. The party is in opposition federally and in NSW, and the man leading its upper house team has admitted to leaking a confidential parliamentary report while his staffer was running factional recruitment operations on taxpayer-funded time. The Reformers' activities touch multiple members of parliament and party figures, and Operation Rosny's terms of reference are broad enough to encompass both the donation chain and the recruitment machinery it funded.

What ICAC is testing is not whether branch stacking occurred — that is legal in NSW — but whether the money used to pay for it was properly declared under the Electoral Funding Act. That is a narrower question with sharper teeth. If the commission finds that donations were solicited from prohibited donors or in undeclared amounts, the conduct moves from factional grubbiness into potential criminal territory. The $25,000 payment acknowledged on the opening day, and the alleged involvement of Nassif and Toplace, give the inquiry a financial trail to follow that extends well beyond internal party dynamics.

For the NSW Liberal Party, the immediate problem is Tudehope. He remains in the parliament, stood aside from shadow cabinet but still holding the title of shadow attorney general. Sloane's decision to wait for ICAC's findings before acting is defensible on due-process grounds, but every day the inquiry runs is another day of headlines connecting the opposition to leaked reports, taxpayer-funded factioneering and prohibited donors. The factional map is also in play: the Reformers sought to stack branches controlled by rivals, meaning the inquiry's fallout will not be confined to one sub-faction's interests.

The transcripts speak for themselves, and they are being published in real time. Jean-Claude Perrottet's admissions on 5 August — that he did factional work on the public payroll and that the Reformers deliberately placed members in hostile branches to shift preselection outcomes — are not in dispute. What remains to be tested is whether the money behind that effort was lawful.