Sweat, swears and smears: Deconstructing Jean Nassif’s explosive ICAC appearance

A fugitive hiding out in Lebanon. Reduced to giving evidence from his Beirut bedroom. Spraying his enemies like a malfunctioning machine gun one minute, being calm and co-operative the next.

Even for the high theatrical standards of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, the long-awaited appearance of Jean Nassif on Monday afternoon was next-level stuff.

The former Toplace owner and alleged fraudster dialled in to his appointment with the blockbuster Operation Rosny inquiry shortly before 7am local time. He was meant to give evidence last week, but cancelled at the last minute citing health problems. Thankfully, on Monday he seemed fighting fit. “I’m going to speak my heart,” he promised.

Nassif explained there was absolutely nothing wrong with offering millions of dollars to a group of Liberal Party operatives – or in his words, “the boys” – in exchange for them using their contacts to get stalled apartment projects approved.

“Of course, when you tell him there is $1 million to approve a project, they will move mountains,” Nassif said. But he insisted he had never sought to stack the Hills Shire Council, or Liberal Party branches, to make it happen. “I did not pay for political outcomes,” he insisted. “I paid to defend my business and my dignity and my honour.”

There was nothing wrong, either, with seeking to get his primary opponents, former police minister David Elliott and building commissioner David Chandler, to “back off”. Both stood in the way of Nassif’s substandard Toplace projects, and became serious irritants to a man used to getting his own way.

He is clearly still obsessed with Elliott, Chandler and former 2GB radio host Ray Hadley, describing the trio of Toplace critics as “the one person”. The Liberal Party’s centre-Right faction, to which Elliott belonged, was full of racists and bullies, he alleged without offering any evidence to support the smear. In one intercepted phone call played at the commission on Monday, Nassif described former premier Gladys Berejiklian in vulgar terms.

As his evidence on Monday wore on, Nassif became more animated and belligerent , waving his arms around and rocking back and forth in his chair. When trying to remember certain events, he would squeeze his eyes closed and tilt his head up towards the ceiling. At one point he stood up to turn on the air-conditioning. “It’s summer and it’s very hot,” he explained.

Nassif fled Australia for Lebanon in December 2022 as his Toplace empire crumbled. He has at times been living in the village of Haref Ardeh, about 90 kilometres north-east of Beirut, for much of the time since. He has been spotted at nightclubs and casinos. But his existence today is a far cry from his former waterfront home in the Sydney suburb of Chiswick, which sold for $12.5 million after Toplace imploded and administrators took over.

The ICAC could not compel Nassif to give evidence because he is outside its jurisdictional power. He volunteered to appear on Monday, which raised eyebrows as to his motivations.