A fugitive Sydney property developer allegedly threatened the former New South Wales building commissioner with harm if he did not back off inspections of his construction projects, the state’s corruption watchdog has heard.
David Chandler, who served as the state’s building commissioner between 2019 and 2024, told the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Thursday that Jean Nassif — the head of Toplace Developments now living in rural Lebanon — delivered the chilling warning during a phone call in 2021.
“He just basically said: Don’t you harm my project, and if you harm my project, I’ll harm you,” Chandler recounted.
The evidence lays bare the bitter confrontation between a regulator determined to crack down on building defects and a powerful developer willing, allegedly, to use intimidation to protect his bottom line.
A clash years in the making
The pair had history. In 2020, Chandler said he sat down with Nassif in person — a meeting he described as tense and unpleasant, with Nassif becoming “loud and overbearing.”
By that stage, Chandler had already ordered a “destructive inspection” of a Toplace building in Botany, a process that would see bathrooms ripped apart so waterproofing could be properly examined.
A few days before the threatening phone call in April 2021, the commissioner had slapped a prohibition order on Skyview, a Toplace apartment complex in Castle Hill, blocking residents from moving in. Photos of substantial cracking in the building’s basement — sent to Chandler by Greens senator David Shoebridge and others — had prompted urgent action.
After the alleged threat, Chandler took a hard line. He banned Nassif from being present on any sites where he was conducting inspections and resolved to cut the developer out of all direct dealings.
Over the course of his five years in the role, Chandler said he carried out hundreds of inspections. But he was acutely aware that Nassif believed he was being singled out.
“An intentional campaign to white ant me”
The phone call was only the beginning. Chandler told Icac that soon afterwards he became aware of “an accumulation of pressure” aimed squarely at him.
Politicians were being told by industry figures that he was “on the take.” Journalists were being offered material designed to undermine his integrity. The whole thing had the hallmarks of a coordinated hit job, he said.
“It seemed to be an intentional campaign to white ant me,” Chandler told the inquiry.
The first salvo came in the form of an anonymous email sent to Toplace, suggesting that a $5 million payment to a lawyer named William Roberts would persuade the building commissioner to lift orders blocking occupancy certificates for the developer’s projects. Toplace executives, including Sharangan Maheswaran — a person of interest at the Icac inquiry — flagged it to Chandler and described it as an “attempt at a shakedown.”
Chandler wanted to take the matter straight to the police. Maheswaran held back, saying Toplace was still investigating the email’s origins. The commissioner instead took contemporaneous notes and reported the matter to his departmental secretary, Emma Hogan, who ordered an internal audit. Toplace executives declined to engage with the inquiry, and Chandler was ultimately cleared.
The second wave came via a video. It showed Chandler telling workers on a building site that he kept an “informal list” of dodgy certifiers which he had shared with the banks. The footage, reported by The Australian in June 2022, was framed as evidence that Chandler had misled an earlier parliamentary committee about whether he regulated certifiers. Another internal investigation followed. Chandler was cleared, though he was asked to undertake internal training.
The video was also raised with the then-minister for fair trading, Eleni Petinos, who was Chandler’s direct superior. Petinos and her chief of staff, Cassandra Lawry, gave evidence last week that they had been shown the clip by Chris Spence, the chief of staff to planning minister Anthony Roberts, in May 2022, and that it was raised again in June.
Both women told the commission they later came to believe they were being used in a campaign to destabilise the commissioner. None of Petinos, Lawry or Spence are persons of interest in the inquiry.
Political undercurrents
The corruption inquiry is investigating whether $2 million in payments allegedly made by Nassif to Jeremy Greenwood, Christian Ellis and Charles Perrottet — the brother of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet — amounted to illegal political donations to the NSW Liberal party. The probe is also examining whether the payments were intended to secure the removal of the building commissioner.
In a tape played at the opening of the inquiry, Nassif was heard saying that Dominic Perrottet had agreed to replace fair trading minister Kevin Anderson with Petinos — a woman Nassif reportedly referred to as “my girl.”
Anderson was replaced when Perrottet became premier in October 2021. Chandler said he noticed at the time that media stories had begun to appear that appeared to discredit the minister.
“So there was just that atmosphere of, he’s not doing a good job or that his role is under review,” Chandler said.
By July 2022, the pressure had become unbearable. Chandler resigned, citing a lack of confidence from the minister and undue pressure from developers. He later returned to the role and served until 2024.
Nassif, who fled Australia for rural Lebanon in 2022, is expected to appear before Icac by video link next week. He has previously denied any wrongdoing. Chandler is not under investigation.
The inquiry continues.
Why it Matters
This testimony lays bare a deeply uncomfortable reality at the heart of Australia’s building industry: regulators tasked with protecting apartment buyers from defective construction can find themselves targets of calculated, well-funded campaigns to remove them. The alleged threats, the anonymous emails hinting at extortion, the leaked videos, the political manoeuvring — taken together, they paint a picture of a system where developers with deep pockets can wage war on the officials trying to hold them to account. If Icac’s investigation confirms that political donations and backroom lobbying were used to dismantle building oversight in NSW, the fallout will extend far beyond one inquiry. It will raise fundamental questions about who really holds power over the homes ordinary Australians are expected to live in.
