Rosny closes, and the real question is what the rules will finally say

Sydney has had 10 weeks of public hearings, a steady diet of allegations and the usual posturing from people who insist the system is working exactly as intended. Operation Rosny, Icac’s inquiry into branch stacking and political donations, has now closed its public phase without the kind of spectacular resignation that tends to satisfy the gallery. The anticlimax is almost part of the ritual.

That would be a mistake, though, if it were taken to mean the exercise amounted to nothing. The inquiry has centred on three broad allegations: that the Reformers, a faction of young conservative Christians, pursued branch stacking in the New South Wales Liberal Party; that they sought to recruit 5,000 Christian conservatives to take control of the party’s NSW division; and that Liberal figures were linked to $2 million in donations from developer Jean Nassif, with claims tied to factional warfare, David Elliott and David Chandler. In other words, the sort of party politics that is usually described as “internal matters” until somebody turns on the lights.

Peggy Dwyer SC, the counsel assisting, opened the hearings by stressing the role of electoral funding laws. Money in politics, she said, has the potential to corrupt. Anthony Whealy KC, a former Icac assistant commissioner, argues that the real value of Rosny will not be measured by resignations. He expects a carefully considered report that gives definitive rulings on what counts as a political donation, and he says the other major point is simpler: all of this has played out in public.

Public, yes. And at times almost farcical. The most memorable scene was Jean Nassif appearing by video link from his bedroom in Beirut, where he spent two days railing against the allegations and against Elliott and Chandler. He said he had left Australia to receive what he described as an international award for number one businessman from an Arabic background, and that he would return once he had secured a legal team willing to fight politicians and clear his name. He also told Dwyer that he would not come back to be killed by the mafia boys. Whealy called the performance the theatre of the absurd, and on this rare occasion the description does not feel excessive.

There have been consequences, though not always for the people Icac directly named. Angus Taylor, who is not accused of wrongdoing, was repeatedly questioned about messages referring to a plan to shake him down for $10,000, and he refused to give a running commentary on matters before the commission. Dallas McInerney lost his job as chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW after admitting he had done a factory reset on his iPhone, potentially wiping evidence after a bank security alert. Damien Tudehope, who was not named in the allegations, has been referred to the parliamentary privileges committee after admitting he leaked a confidential draft report from a 2023 parliamentary inquiry to Liberal factional figure Jeremy Greenwood.

Dominic Perrottet’s name has hovered over the inquiry more than the commission itself ever suggested it should. It appeared in messages as “Dom” and in phone taps of Nassif as “my boy” and “my best friend”. Two of his siblings, Charles and Jean-Claude, and his sister-in-law Anita gave evidence, and Anita Perrottet rejected the suggestion that she had lied to the commission to cover illegal donations to her husband. But the presiding commissioner, Fabian Gleeson SC, made it explicit in week six that Dominic Perrottet was not a person of interest. That was supposed to settle the matter. In politics, of course, a settled matter is often just a pause before the next round of insinuation.

Branch stacking itself is not illegal, and it happens on both sides of politics. That is one of those details the public usually learns only after the machinery has already done its work. What Icac may still provide is a cleaner account of where factional activity ends and political donation rules begin, if such a line can be drawn with any honesty at all. The point of the inquiry, as Dwyer framed it at the start, was to protect a fair go for politicians and the public they serve. A noble aim, no doubt. The challenge is that the party machine rarely volunteers to be fair unless it is made to.

Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com