Demolition job: the Liberal party war surrounding NSW building commissioner’s exit

David Chandler, a tough-talking 40-year veteran of the New South Wales construction industry, had reached the end of his tether when he resigned abruptly as the state's building commissioner in July.

The man responsible for getting developers to fix unsafe buildings felt he had endured attacks on his character, a smear campaign swirling through the corridors of state parliament, lobbying by former ministers and a deteriorating relationship with his own minister.

His resignation letter, tabled in parliament last week, pulled no punches, revealing that he felt "a functional and trusted relationship" with previous ministers and their offices fell apart once Eleni Petinos became the fair trading minister in December 2021.

He complained that his engagement with her office had been "problematic", and not at the same level as with previous ministers.

Much of the attention has since focused on Chandler's mention of his concerns about what he called "the advised relationship" between Petinos and Coronation Properties, a property developer that hired the former deputy premier John Barilaro after he left parliament.

Specifically, Chandler referred to calls he received both from Petinos's office and from Barilaro shortly after he issued a draft stop-work order against the company earlier this year. (Barilaro said the stop-work order "concerned me" but his request for a meeting with Chandler was not in relation to the order.)

But Chandler had also found himself, through his focus on developments in the Hills district of north-west Sydney, in the middle of an ugly war between the Liberal party's centre-right and right factions, which have been battling for nearly a decade over control of the Hills district branches of the party.