Updated August 12, 2026 — 5:43pm,first published 11:48amLiberal lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood paid $25,000 for his friend Jean-Claude Perrottet to hide in Fiji to avoid a parliamentary inquiry and told Catholic Schools NSW boss Dallas McInerney to flee to Brisbane so he could not be called to give evidence, an explosive corruption inquiry has heard.Greenwood also organised a private security guard, paid for by fugitive Sydney developer Jean Nassif, to be stationed outside his house to stop a summons for the 2023 parliamentary inquiry being served on him, the Independent Commission Against Corruption was told on Wednesday.Jeremy Greenwood leaving the ICAC after giving three days of evidence. He will be required to return again when the commission moves on to other allegations. George ChanIn a stunning day of evidence, the commission confirmed that senior NSW Liberal MP Chris Rath was integral in helping Greenwood, as well as John-Claude and his brother Charles, avoid attending the parliamentary inquiry by keeping them abreast of the committee’s deliberations. Rath was a member of the committee.That parliamentary inquiry into illegal donations and The Hills Shire Council was one of the catalysts for this ICAC inquiry, which is also investigating Nassif’s links to Liberal operatives and payments from Catholic Schools NSW to the right-wing Catholic group The Reformers.As well as avoiding the parliamentary inquiry, the commission heard that Greenwood met with Jean-Claude Perrottet at the Royal Oak, a pub in Double Bay, immediately after Greenwood gave evidence at a private hearing of the ICAC in June 2025. It is a criminal offence to discuss evidence or mention attendance at a hearing.Counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, asked Greenwood whether he had been told at the time of his private hearing he was prohibited from discussing his evidence with anyone. Greenwood agreed he had been.However, Greenwood and Jean-Claude Perrottet met later that day at the pub, where the pair placed their phones at a different table to avoid being surveilled, Dwyer told the commission.Greenwood said that was his usual meeting practice that was based on advice from former US president Barack Obama.“So when you put the phones away from a meeting, do you do that when you go to any pub with your friends? You deliberately put your phones at another table, a few tables away?” Dwyer asked. Greenwood said he did.Greenwood also confirmed he had met Reformers co-founder Robert Assaf, also a person of interest to the ICAC, for two walks and at a cafe after Assaf had received a summons to the commission. Discussing a summons is also an offence, the commission was told.The commission heard Jean-Claude Perrottet lost his job at Medallion Financial after it emerged he was hiding in Fiji in the weeks before the March 2023 election when his brother Dominic was premier.Greenwood paid for Perrottet’s flights and made several payments totalling $25,000 while he was overseas so the youngest Perrottet brother could avoid the parliamentary inquiry.Greenwood said the payments were intended to be loans, but he did not know if the money had been repaid.“I can’t remember if it was paid, but I suggested to Sharangan [Maheswaran] at the time ‘you know, your boss is the cause of this, so you can cover it’. I don’t know if they paid it in the end,” Greenwood told the commission.Dwyer asked if the “boss” referred to was Nassif. Maheswaran worked for Nassif at his construction company Toplace and is also a person of interest in this inquiry.In text messages shown to the commission, Greenwood and McInerney discussed a “job description” that the schools’ boss should email to their “young friend” while he was hiding in Fiji. Greenwood agreed it appeared they were discussing a job at Catholic Schools NSW for Jean-Claude Perrottet.In another message McInerney wrote to Greenwood: “Now I have a letter from the committee”, referring to the parliamentary inquiry.Greenwood replied: “WTF. Go to Brisbane.” Greenwood told the commission it was his understanding the reason Charles Perrottet could not be summonsed was because he was in Victoria, outside the NSW jurisdiction.Dwyer said to Greenwood: “Do you remember giving advice to Dallas McInerney, the CEO of Catholic Schools NSW, that he should avoid responding to a legal document, a summons to attend the parliamentary inquiry?”“I don’t remember this message at all,” Greenwood told the ICAC.Ultimately, Jean-Claude Perrottet was given a job at Catholic Schools NSW, with a base salary of $165,000, where he worked until June this year when he was made redundant.Earlier on Wednesday, Greenwood told the commission he gave Jean-Claude Perrottet “kickbacks” from a Catholic Schools NSW contract he secured because he wanted to boost his best friend’s income.The commission heard Perrottet had managed to secure a contract with Catholic Schools NSW for Greenwood in 2021, after the lobbyist set up his own consultancy firm, JPG Advisory, that year.Greenwood told the commission that to reward Perrottet he agreed to pay him 50 per cent of JPG Advisory’s ongoing retainer.He insisted that even though Perrottet, a key member of The Reformers, was employed at Medallion Financial, his salary was only about $50,000.Greenwood said he wanted to help his best mate boost his income. He also said he agreed to give Assaf a one-off payment of 10 per cent of the retainer.Dwyer asked Greenwood how he accounted for Perrottet’s “kickbacks”.Greenwood told the commission he would have no issues claiming invoices from Perrottet as a business expense for tax purposes because he believed the 50 per cent fee for securing a client was a fair “commission structure”.“It could say he bought a flamingo off me. It’s just an internal document only for me, it’s how I process it out that matters,” Greenwood told the commission.Dwyer asked Greenwood why he had not secured the Catholic Schools NSW contract himself, given there was a previous arrangement with the organisation and his former firm, Beckington.The commission has heard McInerney terminated Catholic Schools NSW’s contract with Beckington after concerns from the education body’s board that it was not getting value for money.Greenwood said Perrottet had acted as his “agent” to convince McInerney to sign up with JPG Advisory.The lobbyist also urged his Beckington business partner Christian Ellis to pay Perrottet from their Beckington business account after Perrottet complained about not being compensated for Reformers work.Ellis is also a person of interest to ICAC and hid in the forests of southern NSW in 2023 to avoid receiving a summons for the parliamentary inquiry.After receiving a string of messages from Perrottet, including the complaint “I left my job under the pretense I would get paid”, Greenwood told Ellis that Perrottet should get paid because of the money coming in from “Concord”.Concord was the codename Greenwood used to refer to Nassif, who was a client of Beckington.“You need to give Claude this full amount. Considering what Concord gives, it’s not right,” the message from Greenwood to Ellis said.Greenwood told the commission he did not recall any of this, and guessed he was being sympathetic to his friend but was not aware of any arrangement for Perrottet to receive money for Reformers work through Beckington.Betrayals, backstabbers and rats: Inside the ICAC’s Game of Thrones‘Not to be messed with’: Who is Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, the counsel assisting ICAC?How the NSW Reformers infiltrated the Liberal PartyThe ghosts of ICACs past haunt the NSW Liberals, writes Kate McClymontOpinion: How does Liberal plotting and branch-stacking fit into God’s plan? Malcolm Knox asksFrom our partners