ALP and Shooters stifle debate on Minister’s misleading of Parliament

“Since the Land and Environment Court invalidated the Catherine Hill Bay development at the end of August 2009 on the grounds of perceived bias, the State Government has been scrambling to resurrect the development plans of its major donor Hardie Holdings.

“In July 2009, the Planning Minister issued a s.117 order that instructed the Council, when preparing its Draft Local Environment Plan, to accommodate a 2006 Agreement between the Government and Hardie Holdings, an agreement that the Court held amounted to a ‘land bribe’.

“That order is still in place. But, as a letter from Director-General Sam Haddad to the Council dated 8 April 2010 states, if Council abides by the order, any rezonings are almost certainly to be declared invalid.

“So the Council is between a rock and a hard place. If it follows the Minister’s order, then it will be behaving in an illegal manner but the nature of the order is such that it has no alternative but to do so. It is outrageous that the Minister is threatening to remove Council’s planning powers because of the Council’s alleged failure to advance the Draft LEP.

“The Minister and his Department know this full well. What they proposed in May was to cut the Council out of the picture entirely. It could no longer be relied on to deliver an outcome the Government wanted, because the Council had lost its Labor majority in 2008.

“The Government would then be free to establish a planning panel composed of Ministerial appointees, quietly revoke the s.117 order, and produce a result that would save Hardie Holding’s and the Government’s bacon.

“To do this, the Minister relied on two pretexts on 7 May when he wrote to the Council requiring it to show cause why its planning powers should not be removed. One was the supposed delay surrounding the Draft LEP and the other was the number of complaints the Minister asserted he had received about the Council.

“The documents released to the Parliament, as well as the Minister’s answers to questions about the complaints, clearly show that there was no evidence to substantiate either pretext. Almost none of the ten letters supposedly of complaint given to the Council related to Council’s processing of planning applications. One was merely inquiring about how money spent on Development Application lodgement fees is spent.

“Moreover, the detailed advice the Minister received from his department on the Council’s performance shows that on almost every score there were no grounds to support the removal of the Council’s powers.

“I believe the Minister’s actions are deplorable and clearly indicate his contempt for due process, procedural fairness, and objectivity. As such, he warrants the Parliament’s censure,” said Ms Hale.

Contact: Colin Hesse on 02 9230 3030 or 0401 719 124