David Chandler is back in the spotlight, big time: firstly offering a solution to housing affordability but also as the victim of an alleged smear campaign by senior Liberals that led to the sacking of a NSW government minister.

Just days after pitching himself as someone who could shake things up to help fix the housing crisis, the former Building Commissioner is about to be centre stage at the ICAC’s Operation Rosny inquiry as the subject of allegations that Liberal Party figures ran an underhand campaign to get him sacked.

According to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald former Fair Trading and Small Business minister Eleni Petinos, giving evidence to the commission this week, said the material aired at the inquiry left her disgusted, and that people she’d considered friends had leaned on personal relationships in a way she called highly improper.

The commission heard the first details of that campaign against Chandler, including false claims that he was open to bribery, had pocketed a $10,000 deposit, and had gone soft on certain companies.

ICAC alleges the smear was co-ordinated by fugitive developer Jean Nassif in a bid to stop Chandler policing substandard buildings put up by Nassif’s Toplace outfit – a firm that Chandler had targetted in his campaign to rid the apartment building industry of dodgy deleopers and defective buildings.

Petinos told the inquiry that former Liberal staffer Charles Perrottet – brother of then-premier Dominic Perrottet – had warned her she’d have her “hands full” with Chandler.

She also gave evidence about a video, repeatedly raised with her office by a former friend and senior political staffer Chris Spence, showing Chandler complaining colourfully about building certification issues – material Spence apparently hoped could be used to get rid of him.

Petinos was sacked over bullying allegations in mid-2022, and described in some detail – at one point close to tears – the sudden way Dominic Perrottet told her she had to go, saying she’d long suspected something odd was behind the timing.

Chandler himself had resigned as commissioner that month, citing concerns about Petinos and her office, before being talked back into the job. The inquiry continues, and Chandler himself is expected to give evidence, although he’s not named as a person of interest.

All of which makes for an odd contrast with the other Chandler story doing the rounds: barely a week before the ICAC allegations broke, he was telling the Sydney Morning Herald he’s ready to come out of retirement – this time to take on housing affordability.

The plan, dubbed MM3, would see small and medium builders – the kind stepping up from house-and-land packages into six-to-24-unit blocks – build thousands of apartments priced under $1 million, using government-approved “pattern book” designs repeated dozens of times over.

Chandler reckons that approach could cut building costs by at least 20 per cent, with an 85 square metre two-bedroom unit costing around $350,000 to $400,000 to build, and government capping land cost at $500,000 a dwelling by acquiring it directly – taking the usual developer profit margin out of the equation. There’d be a government completion guarantee built in too, so buyers weren’t left exposed if a builder went under mid-project.

Chandler’s asking for 4000 new units in three years, run out of a program office with a five-to-seven-year lifespan before handing the model to the private sector. He says he’d need the same “unambiguous mandate” he had as commissioner – and he’s happy to compete for the job against anyone with a comparable record.

Considering his muscular employment of that mandate led to pro-developer politicians plotting to undermine him and have him sacked, and there’s a chance his evidence to the Operation Rosny commission may upset a few more apple carts, his hopes of becoming the affordable housing hero won’t be enhanced one jot.