In a Sydney hearing room, the machinery of political patronage has been placed under a slow, unsparing light. Jean-Claude Perrottet, younger brother of a former premier, told the NSW corruption watchdog this week that he cannot account for $25,000 in payments he received from a lobbying firm tied to his own political faction. The inquiry, known as Operation Rosny, is tracing whether the Liberal party's conservative Reformers group used money — donations, payments, favours — to stack branches and circumvent the law. What is being examined is not merely one man's memory, but the deeper question