Developer accused of Chandler bribe smear

NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler has accused associates of Sydney developer Toplace of trying to discredit him by falsely claiming he asked for a $5 million bribe.

Last Wednesday (Sep 7), according to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald, a NSW parliamentary budget estimates committee heard Mr Chandler testify that there had been a concerted effort by people in the company to discredit and compromise him.

Last year high-profile developer Jean Nassif’s Toplace Group, once described in parliament as a “dodgy ­developer” with “one of the worst records in the residential building industry,” was ordered by Mr Chandler to stop selling apartments at its Skyview development at Castle Hill until it fixed serious defects.

Firstly at a meeting with Toplace over the Skyview issue, an unnamed person from the company read out an email they said they’d received.

It purportedly offered that if Toplace paid $5 million into a trust account “they could make the building commissioner go away on Skyview.”

Mr Chandler said he suggested that they take the matter to the police but the Toplace executive declined, parliament heard.

However, the attempts to discredit him weren’t finished. Mr Chandler said that on that same day a journalist was offered a story, claiming he had demanded a $5 million bribe.

The journalist was told by the Toplace contact, “Don’t you know the building commissioner is corrupt. What are you doing about it?”

Around the same time, minister Kevin Anderson was approached by someone who said: “Pity about your building commissioner being corrupt.”

Mr Chandler told the hearing that he was infuriated by the false claims that he was corrupt. “I took offence at the fact that someone was out briefing, backgrounding both media and politicians,” he said.

He’s not the only one who’s angry. 

“You can’t have, in a fair and equal society, public servants like Mr Chandler being treated in such a fashion and someone needs to be held to account,” 2GB radio talkback host Ray Hadley said on air. “The bloody thing’s disgraceful, absolutely bloody disgraceful!”

It should be noted that Mr Nassif and four of his companies are suing Mr Hadley for alleged defamation in previous broadcasts in which he attacked their business practises and the quality of their product.

Ironically, this all came out in a week in which we at Flat Chat reflected on how in the “bad old days” some property developers prospered by employing similar skills set members of the criminal fraternity.

Firstly in our podcast last week, and then in last week’s Australian Financial Review, we recalled the fairly recent times when property developers and criminals were one and the same.

If you like this post or find it helpful, please share it with interested friends using the social media buttons. If you wish to respond, registered readers can add a comment at the foot of the story or, we’d prefer, on the Flat Chat Forum.

To subscribe (for free) to our weekly Flat Chat newsletter, bringing you the latest posts from this website, just click HERE