Perrottet Family Member Denies Lying Under Oath at NSW Corruption Hearing
Anita Perrottet, sister-in-law of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, told the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on 26 August 2026 that hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments she received were for "strategic and marketing advice." She rejected counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer SC's suggestion that she had been placed in an "impossible situation" and lied under oath to protect 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 began on 27 July 2026 at the ICAC Public Hearing Room in Sydney, is investigating possible offences under the Electoral Funding Act — the law that governs how political parties raise and spend money in NSW — and is expected to run for eight weeks ICAC. ICAC is also examining whether the Reformers, a factional grouping within the Liberal Party, solicited or accepted illegal donations to fund member recruitment or renewal The Guardian.
Dwyer told the inquiry that evidence would show Anita Perrottet acted as a "conduit" — essentially a go-between — for payments totalling $661,000. That figure, Dwyer said, matched her husband Charles's alleged one-third share of $2 million the three men reportedly expected to receive, split evenly three ways The Guardian.
The financial details are intricate. 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. 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 payment pattern 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 matters for several reasons. The inquiry touches two of NSW's most politically sensitive fault lines at once: 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 bankrolled 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 structure ICAC is assembling appears designed to test whether the payment arrangements can be reconciled with genuine commercial activity or whether they served as a passthrough mechanism — a way of moving money to its real recipients behind a layer of legitimate-looking transactions. 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 work was real, delivered verbally, and compensated at rates she considered appropriate.
What remains unresolved is whether the commissioner accepts that account or finds the combined weight of circumstantial detail — notably 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.
