One of NSW Planning Minister Frank Sartor’s legacies was the establishment of the Planning Assessment Commission, a seven-member independent body of experts to give transparency and arms-length propriety to decisions on major developments.
Sartor, who lost his Cabinet position when Premier Nathan Rees took over last September, had become increasingly alarmed at the public and media perception that he was “green lighting” projects for developers who had given generously to the ALP’s Sussex Street machine.
Nothing could be further from the truth, said Sartor, the former Sydney lord mayor who hosted the 2000 Olympics.
Indeed, many developers were furious with Sartor’s aggressive involvement in the approval process and through their lobby group, the Urban Task Force, they were seeking his removal from the portfolio.
The anti-Sartor campaign was assisted by Joe Tripodi who had been involved in some spectacular fireworks with him in Cabinet and factional fixer Eddie Obeid from the upper house.
With his career as Planning Minister drawing to an end, Sartor persuaded Cabinet to adopt the Planning Assessment Commission to create a Chinese wall between the minister and hotly contested major developments.
He then staffed the body with his own experts:
- Gabrielle Kibble (chair), current chair of the Heritage Council, administrator of Wollongong Council and former head of the Planning Department.
- Donna Campbell, former Director of Legal Services at the Environmental Protection Authority.
- John Court, chemical engineer and environmental expert.
- Lindsay Kelly, former NSW Government architect.
- Neil Shepherd, former head of the Environment Protection Authority, Ministry for the Environment and National Parks and Wildlife Service.
- Garry Payne, Director-General of the Department of Local Government.
- Janet Thomson, respected planner with more than 30 years experience at all levels of government.
- Richard Thorp, leading architect and President of the NSW Architects Registration Board.
When the names became public, the developers were appalled. For them, this was the panel from hell: it comprised people of the highest probity with the toughest hides. The game was over. Or was it?
In late November, Sartor’s novice successor, Kristina Keneally, MP for Heffron, issued a press release headed “Depoliticising Planning Decisions” announcing that the PAC would only get to make the decisions on a very small and diminishing number of developments — those where the developer had made a donation or where the Minister personally had a conflict.
In the interests of “depoliticising decisions”, the Minister would make over 90% of the private developer decisions, not the 20% Sartor had envisioned.
Sartor’s 11th hour attempt to restore some transparency to the untrammeled powers of the Minister has been derailed and his much-vaunted PAC has been rendered virtually redundant. How long before Keneally dismantles it?
It’s business as usual in the State of Disgrace.
err … the second reference to “Frank” is ex Minister Frank Sartor referring to planning decisions for huge expansion of Port Botany. Not to be confused with the first reference to billionaire Frank Lowy, of Westfield.
Keneally was with Keating promoting Barangaroo on channel 7 news tonight back on the priority list after it was shelved for 3 years in the mini budget.
Keating people should remember after losing in 96 got involved with Frank Lowy’s Westfield approval at Bondi Junction. A development I voted against as a local councilor. Why? because it’s a regional size facility in a sub regional location. Which can only suck economic life out of all the village style strip shops from the rich burbs to the north to the struggling ones in the south east.
And that’s what has happened. Even breaking Double Bay’s general viability, but not just. As you say somethings never change. It’s looking increasingly like Frank sold his soul for instance to shoe in the Port Botany expansion complete with super tankers services – check this story: The Mega Containers Invade – WSJ.com http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123292489602813689.html 26 Jan 2009.
Then afterwards he didn’t even get the pay off – the devilish ALP are like that. They screwed Frank and then they tossed him aside anyway. When he tried to rebuild his credibility it was too late, they knew he was tainted goods. Their polling showed it.
As for the giant container ships with dredging in Botany, and Port Phillip Bay. All that grief and then with the recession arriving:
“Shippers are eager to avoid partially filled vessels at almost any cost. “To fill their big boats, these guys will cut their price to any level for customers,” said Dirk Visser, an analyst at Dynamar NV, a Dutch consultancy.
“With overcapacity and a drop in trade, the bottom recently fell out on shipping rates. The rate for shipping a container from Asia to Europe, the world’s busiest trade lane, has fallen to around $300, one-tenth the cost of a year ago, even as some shippers cancel regular runs. Some ships have gone so far as to take containers free. The only cost to the shipper is roughly $500 in fuel and transit fees, which are assessed on all containers.”