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NSW Liberals under O'Farrell are systematically trashing support property rights in NSW legislation.
SoHONSW is concerned the NSW Liberals under the leadership of Barry O'Farrell have twice in June 2009 SOHONSW trashed the rights of private property owners.
According to The Australian's Imre Salusinsky and the Sydney Morning Herald's Matthew Moore, this is occuring across a variety of legislative fronts, so is a conscious strategy.
The first SoHONSW takes issue with was their decision to support the Greens and vote against the NSW Heritage Act Amendment Bill in June 2009 - ie., againts a historic Bill that was righting 30 years of serious wrongs perpetrated against property owners subject to heritage listings or heritage nominations in NSW.
The Bill was the culmination of many years of hard work by heritage owners to reform iniquitious and grossly unfair predations on their private property which were incompatible with living in a modern democratic state. It represented over 90% of the property owners reform program we sought to have implemented.
At no time did the NSW Liberals ever bother to contact heritage owner organisations like SoHONSW for our views, although key Liberals regularly met with pro heritage organisations and personnel and became captured by their anti-property [indeed, openly hostile] perspectives .
SoHONSW is aware of a number Liberal Members of the NSW Parliament being approached over recent years by owners of heritage listed properties within their electorates, complaining about how they had been mistreated by the existing heritage laws and structures. Till the duplicitous Liberal stance was exposed via their voting down tghe Bill we worked so hard on, SoHONSW would recommend affected owners approach Liberal MP's for assistance when they were being harassed. We will not only not be recommending this anymore. We will provide any owners making imquiries with the voting record of their state MP on this Heritage Amendment Bill. If that record reveals a vote against the Bill, we will advise the owner we recommend they do not bother approaching that MP for assistance but instead contact the Minister for Planning Ms Keneally's office.
SoHONSW had assumed - incorrectly as it turned out - that the NSW Liberals would vote consistent with core liberal values and support the Bill. Heritage property owners - many of whom had been harassed for decades fighting off local heritage fanatics lodging repeated heritage nominations over their property - had received significant support from the Federal Liberal Party, who gave us a fair hearing and solid recommendations for heritage reform from the Federal Productivity Commissioners.
Yet the NSW Liberals dumped not only on the 31,000 owners of heritage listed property in NSW, but also on all the ground breaking work done by their Federal Liberal colleagues to right these heritage wrongs.
The second piece of legislation concerned 'just acquisition' of private property by agents of the government. Land owners and small business families in the Parramatta CBD owned land targeted for inclusion in a massive $1.6 billion dollar revamp of Parramatta railway and shopping zones. Parramatta Council had kept the zonings in the areas held by these owners artifically low for decades, but approved multi storey developments alongside them, including Parramatta City Councils own headquarters, which towers above these modest shops. Parramatta Council signed a Public Private Partnership [PPP] with Grocon, a massive developer based in Victoria, to redevelop this site.
Parramatta Council sought to use their powers under the NSW Compulsory Aquistions Act to compulsorily acquire these privately held properties. Parramatta Council planned to then rezone the land for serious high rise [40 storeys has been mooted], and allow Grocon to demolish and rebuild on an amalgamated site worth vastly more than its modest 2 storey aquisition zoning. Grocon would obviously benefit from a massive increase in Floor to Storey Ratio, Parramatta Council would be receiving an estimated $400 million in annual revenue and the citizens of Parramatta would have [hopefully] more and better designed open space in conjunction with more CBD office and residential space.
The fly in the ointment was Parramatta City Council's keeping zoning on these sites artifically low, so the 'just compensation' they would pay the owners to compensate them for its compulsory acquisition was founded on that - not on the massive rezoning and what the land was really worth under the PPP. The property owners went to the High Court challenging this unjust approach and won their case. The NSW state government then drafted a Bill to remedy the defects identified by the High Court in an attempt to found their next attempt of compulsory acquisition on lawful grounds.
SoHONSW wishes to make it clear we acknowledge public utilities can and will sometimes harm private property rights. We also acknowledge there are instances were this is not only necessary, it is the right thing to do.
Our problem is with a state government entity such as a local Council trying to acquire the land 'on the cheap' so they can maximise their and their private partners profits with a planned later much higher rezoning, but screw over the original property owners.
If a public entity seeks to acquire private owned property for a lucrative commercial venture between themselves and a company, if it is for the greater public good, so be it. The problem arises when that same public entity is the zoning authority and artificially keeps the land zonings low and offers affected owners peanuts in comparison to the rezoned, actual value of their land.
Barry O'Farrell and the NSW Liberals have become schitzophrenic on private property rights at a time when they should have been crystal clear in order to differentiate their political 'brand'.
SoHONSW believes Barry O'Farrell was subject to 'regulatory capture' by well orgnanised heritage fanatics, and the charm offensive from the senior personnel of one-eyed heritage organisations, many of whom reside in and around his and other Liberals North Shore electorates.
On realising that their undermining campaign to get rid of former Planning Minister Frank Sartor had not stopped the heritage reforms, the heritage fanatics resorted to a back up plan after complaints that the new Planning Minister Kristina Keneally was "Frank in a skirt' and from their perspective, possibly worse then her predecessor. SoHONSW does not endorse such views at all.
The heritage fanstic organistions, bloated on public money, mounted a campaign to woo O'Farrell and the NSW Liberals to their point of view, and abandon classic liberal values. Judging from the contents of this Press Release and the NSW Liberals voting pattern on the heritage legislation, they were spectacularly successful. They convinced the NSW Liberals to throw out their Federal Liberals colleague carefully researched and articulated heritage reform agenda, ditch a pillar ideological position of their party, get into bed with the NSW Greens and Communists and vote against reforms of a rancid and we would say corrupt heritage listing system in NSW. A very effective charm offensive indeed.
Then they stabbed him in the neck precisely on these same issues [see Lee Rhiannon's Crikey article below for one example].
How did the heritage fanatics get O'Farrell to agree to tossing out liberal philosophy and getting into bed with them?
The probably convinced him there were votes in it.
Our analysis demonstrates there may well be votes in it from one eyed heritage fanatics, but the political problem for the NSW Liberals is the votes they may gain are not in locations that will assist them win government, because they are overhwelmingly on the North Shore [Blue Ribbon liberal seats anyway] and the trendy innner City [held by Independents such as Clover Moore or Labor and highly unlikely to turn Liberal] ans the Hills District.
Which voters are, on the other hand, most negatively affected by the NSW Liberals about turn on these Bills - voters in swinging seats and especially those in the western suburbs of Sydney who are watching the twists and turns that resulted in NSW Liberals failing to stand solidly by their ideology. The very same NSW voters whose voting habits can and do change governments.
So what precisely was the political gain in trashing core liberal values here?
The agenda of these one-eyed heritage and environmental fanatics is diametrically opposed to classic liberal philosophy, which emphasises the centrality of property rights, the need to protect it against incursions from the heavy hand and deep pockets of the State and respect for due process, including just compensation in any instances where the State acquires any interest in privately owned property for the public interest that has an adverse effect on that items value .
It will be a disaster for owners of heritage listed properties if O'Farrell is elected to govern NSW, gets into bed with the NSW Greens and they jointly implement their heritage policy agenda.
This is because the 30,000+ owners of NSW heritage listed properties will only commence receiving fairer treatment in NSW from mid 2009 when the Heritage Amendment Bill 2009 is not only passed, but fully implemented at the local Council level.
The push to fairer treatment for owners of heritage listed properties embodied in this Bill was - ironically - first championed by the Federal Liberals [former Treasurer Peter Costello and former Minister for the Environment Campbell] who after receiving complaints from affected owners, commissioned the ground breaking 2006 Productivity Commission report into Preserving Historic Heritage.
The PC Report, which only came about because of Liberal championing of the classic liberal principles described above, lifted the lid on long standing heritage rorts and heritage abuses in Australia, especially those relating to bogus heritage listings as well as the practice of overlisting ie., heritage listing items that failed to meet professionally accepted heritage listing criteria.
These heritage abuses and rorts were the same ones long championed and reinforced by the heritage industry and pro-heritage organisations, who were delighted with any measures, however unfair, that punished owners, reduced transparency, foiled owners attempts to appeal unmeritorious heritage listings and cost us our life savings without recourse to any minimally acceptable due process . The same PC report nicely exposed the agendas of the heritage "industry" and their fellow travellers such as the Greens in wanting to introduce ever more punitive measures directed against heritage owners, including criminal sanctions against owners.
The real reason the Greens and radical pro heritage organistions want heritage in NSW moved from the Department of Planning to the Department of the Environment - its nothing to do with conflict of interest. Its all about hating heritage property owners and seeking new ways to punish us.
The issue of heavy regulatory response to owners of heritage items - particularly criminal prosecutions and heavy fines - is something very dear to the heart of heritage fanatics. The PC report dimissed the concept immediately, as did the NSW Expert Panel who conducted the NSW Heritage Act Review. Nevertheless, a radical coalition of heritage fanatics has been hell bent on pursuing this issue as well as blocking any fairness or rights for heritage owners. They have gotten nowhere with the Federal Liberals, were dismissed by the Heritage Act Review and the NSW Department of Planning also refuses to got down that path. They lost comprehensively for one good reason - they deserved to because the rancid heritage listing system they wished to retain was so on the nose that all could smell it.
The reason the NSW Greens and radical pro-heritage activists want heritage moved from the NSW Department of Planning to the NSW Department of the Environment [and unfortunately have convinced the NSW Liberals to support this] has not got anything to do with alleged conflicts of interest. It is for one reason only - the NSW Department of the Environment has a heavy handed criminal and civil prosecution approach towards property owners, along with a massive fine structure including strict liability offences and a voluminous Prosecutions Policy that the heritage fanatics want applied to the 31,000 owners of heritage items listed in NSW.
The heritage fanatics have been spectacularly unsuccessful in securing any support for such a draconian sanction regime against owners using arguments on the merits of the issue - in fact, they were given short shrift - so their backdoor method of achieving this goal is to dupe as many gullible politicians as they can into supporting moving heritage from the DoP to the DoE in NSW.
The NSW Liberals - in their eagerness to score some cheap political points against NSW Labor - have fallen for this bait hook, line and sinker. They even parrot the same line about conflicts of interest.
Give the large scale heritage rorts and heritage corruption exposed by the report comissioned by the Federal Liberals, it is disappointing that the NSW Liberals have allowed themselves to be captured by the same coalition whose malpractices were so resoundingly exposed and condemned.
The NSW Liberals policy wishes to remove the the NSW Heritage Office from the NSW Department of Planning. The assumption appears to be that the NSW Heritage Office was doing 'just fine' before its early 2008 reincorporation back into the DoP. It was not. It was a conflict ridden, incestuous scandal, with heritage staff running purported community heritage organisations on the side, often using their offical public service email adressses, including during their paid public service time. Some also ran their own private heritage consultancy businesses as well, and were permitted to promote this on the then official government heritage website.
If the NSW Liberals want to get serious about 'conflicts of interest' how about they start looking into those enjoyed by the heritage mafia for the past few decades in NSW, and who only started screaming about other peoples purported conflict of interest when their private heritage party had the whistle blown?
The NSW Heritage Office was reincorporated back into the NSW Department of Planning in early 2008, largely as a way of reining in these out of control heritage abuses and practices by its staff. The PC report was merely the tip of the iceberg.
Certain NSW Heritage Office staff were rogue operators, seeking to undermine and sabotage NSW planning laws and systematically failing to apply lawful, objective standards to their public servant work. Some Heritage Office staff moonlighted with secondary employment as private heritage consultants. Many were members of pro-heritage organisations whose submissions, applications and/or arguments that could be required to assessed as part of their public servant work. Some even held Executive positions on pro-heritage organisations. Funding grants parameters were carefully sculpted to ensure for example that grants would only be available for certain heritage purposes, but not others. Again and again not a hint of genuine interest in the situation of heritage owners was evidenced. The NSW Heritage Office continued to produce and disseminate pure heritage propaganda, deliberately keeping owners uninformed about their situation. For example, they only ever produced a booklet about the benefits of heritage listing - zero information for owners about the real problems and/or detriments. When the NSW Heritage Office was operating with rogue elements in its grand sandstone mansion at Parramatta, with its staff doing as they damn well pleased, we did not hear a peep of protest about the very real and extreme conflicts of interest from the Greens, the NSW Liberals and the NSW Local Government and Shires Association. Why? Because it suited them to let these rampant conflicts of interest run unrestrained because they liked the results.
Rogue heritage staff who benefitted handsomely from the lax supervision when they were a mere satellite of the DoP, commenced a feral campaign against the then Minister Frank Sartor to stop them being reincorportated back into the NSW Department of Planning. Who did these rogue Heritage Office staff use as their cats paw in that campaign? Pro heritage organisations, NSWLG&SA, the Greens and the NSW Liberals.
Heritage fanatics and those who earn their living off heritage lobbied the NSW Liberals in order to regain their absolute power over heritage issues, including their power to continue to grossly abuse property owners. The policy proposal from the Liberals to remove the Heritage Office and relocate it with the NSW Department of the Environment is a disaster for all owners of heritage listed properties as it will deliver up to these fanatics the one thing refused them by successive independent heritage inquiries - the ability to have a huge stick of criminal and massive civil penalties to be arrayed against property owners.
O'Farrell has been interviewed referring to this being desirable because of a perceived conflict of interest between heritage and planning. However his policy seeks to entrench another serious confict of interest, which is to ensure representatives from heritage organisations, the heritage industry and the like retain their super-priviledged protected position on the NSW Heritage Council, and that the Heritage Council make final decisions.
It is SoHONSW's position that Heritage Council membership should not comprise any members or officers of the NSW or Australian National Trust due to a serious conflict iof interest, however this same organisation has enjoyed ongoing priviledged access to Heritage Council positions. Similarly, SoHONSW believes person or their family who derives an income from heritage should also not serve on the NSW Heritage Council, as this is a pecuniary conflict of interest.
SoHONSW finds it illuminating that the only heritage conflicts of interest that attract the attention of the NSW Liberals are those constantly raised by the 'heritage industry', the radical Greens and the NSWLG&SA - the arguments of which were discredited in the PC Report and rejected by the NSW Expert Panel as lacking any evidence.
Fascinating that it is the radical heritage agenda O'Farrell and the NSW Liberals have been conned into promoting. This is what we mean by regulatory capture.
Within weeks of the NSW Liberals voting enbloc against the Heritage Amendment Bill reforms [which passed thanks to other politicians] Mr O'Farrell was quoted as telling another property owner Mr Fazzolari from Parramatta that "property rights are the pillar of the Liberal Party" [Sydney Morning Herald 24 June 209 p 3 article by Matthew Moore Urban Affairs Editor titled Owners Condemn land law betrayal"].
Oh yeah? Tell that to the 31,000 owners of heritage listed properties in NSW you sold down the drain in early June 2009 when you voted against giving us any decent rights. Another article gave the full list of O'Farrell's failure to protect private property in NSW was set out [see "O'Farrell again puts politics over principle" by Andrew Clennall in Sydney Morning Herald 25 June 2009 p2] and revealed that his own Party and Shadow Ministers, such as Mike Baird Shadow Treasurer, disagree.
After O'Farrell made assurances to the Parramatta property owners, who had won their case in the High Court of Australia, the NSW Liberals did an about face, and voted with the government and against the land owners. According to the NSW Liberals shadow Attorney General [ie., the person they want to appoint the first law officer in NSW if they win a state election] they Liberals decided to support the Bill because they considered their poorly worded amendment would ensure NSW Councils could not acquire land from owners "for purposes that are private, not public."
The Bill and their amendment did no such thing.
The Liberals' Mr Hartcher appears quite unable to read and understand the contents of the Bill that was before them.
What is crystal clear though from SoHONSW's analysis of both June 2009 Bills is that the NSW Liberal Party consistently screws over property owners and fails spectacularly to live up to or abide by what their Leader Mr O'Farrell claims is a pillar of liberal philosophy.
The NSW Liberals are serious about winning government in NSW, they must dump who ever they are relying on in shaping their increasingly hostile policy towards property owners, and return to classic liberal roots on the issue. Short term alliances of convenience with anti-property owner and/or far more socialistic organisations for the sake of a few votes in their already safe North Shore liberal heartland is a not only selling property owners short, it is prostituting classic liberal values in a way that will not win them one extra seat. So its not even smart politics.
Parramatta property owners have suffered under meritless heritage nominations over their properties under the previous General Manager at Parramatta City Council Mr Neish [interestingly who immediately he got rolled on this, was employed by the NSW National Trust to bring his unique heritage expansion skills to their organisation]. It is Parramatta property owners who the Liberals palmed off with false assurances in this recent Bill. If the NSW Liberals are genuinely interested in winning government, they would be better served targetting electorates in Sydney's westerns suburbs and championing classic liberal property rights as that is where they need to win seats to win government. Pandering to the heritage grang dames and dukes in Kur-ing-gai will not win the Liberals another seat or enhance their ability to form a majority to govern in NSW.
How do The Greens thank O'Farrell for supporting agenda on heritage planning?
Tuesday, 18 August 2009 / 7 comments
Barry O’Farrell sticks his neck out on donations reform
by Lee Rhiannon
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NSW Liberal leader Barry O’Farrell has stuck his neck out on political donations reform, lobbyist activities and election expenditure in an attempt to get ahead of Premier Rees in the eyes of the electorate.
It’s a courageous move, as Sir Humphrey Applebywould say, given the growing disquiet about over development in Mr O’Farrell’s own electorate of Ku-ring-gai and his personal record on accepting donations from developers and lobbyists.
The Greens’ Democracy4sale.org project has uncovered numerous examples of corporate fundraising by Mr O’Farrell in his electorate that he has not disclosed to the Election Funding Authority. It is not possible to produce exact figures on Mr O’Farrell’s fundraising success, as he has adopted the Liberal Party’s reporting system of funnelling all donations through the party head office. Donations can only be sourced back to the Liberal leader when they appear on a donor company’s disclosure form.
Take for example the developer Leighton Holdings, who disclosed precise records of its largesse to the major parties in the lead up to the last election. Leighton Holdings has numerous large development projects in NSW, including the Royal North Shore Hospital re-development.
On 3 March 2006 Leighton Holdings paid $1500 for a table of 10 people at the Ku-ring-gai Business Breakfast with Barry O’Farrell. They donated $595 to the NSW Liberals again on 11 July and 2 November 2006 via a Gordon post office box. Then on 19 January 2007 they donated a further $1500 to the NSW Liberals via a Turramurra post office box. This is just one developer we know of who attended one of Barry O’Farrell’s electorate fundraisers.
Other donations disclosed directly to Barry O’Farrell’s electorate campaign fundraisers include donations from Insurance Australia Group ($120), the Commonwealth Bank ($250) and Laundy Trading Pty Ltd, a large hotelier ($1490).
We know that other property developers with big projects in Ku-ring-gai also give generously to the NSW Liberal party, possibly at Mr O’Farrell’s own fundraisers.
Johnson’s Property Group, which is re-developing the controversial SAN Hospital site in Wahroonga, has donated $150,200 to the NSW Coalition in the past few years.
Rosecorp, which built a massive retirement village in an inappropriate fire-prone location adjacent to Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, has donated $32,000 to the NSW Liberals.
Mirvac, which has built high-rise apartments on the Pacific Highway, have given the NSW Liberals $163,200.
Stockland, which recently purchased land in Gordon for $24 million to build 140 apartments, has donated $200,000 to the NSW Liberal party.
Local developer EK Nominees, who are massively expanding the St Ives Shopping Centre, has donated $30,000 to the NSW Liberals.
Mr O’Farrell’s rhetoric on lobbyists also rings hollow. Since 1999 the NSW Liberals have accepted well over $3 million in donations from members of the powerful property developer lobby group, the NSW Urban Taskforce.
Donor’s disclosure forms submitted to the NSW Election Funding Authority (NSWEFA) after the 2007 election revealed that the lobbyist deals between Mr O’Farrell and his party colleagues extended beyond the property development industry.
The NSWEFA election donor disclosure dated 12 February 2008, lists Barry O’Farrell amongst nine key Coalition MPs who accepted 24 donations directly from the lobbyist group Clubs NSW, presumably for fundraisers in their electorates. Clubs NSW declared donating $5000 directly for Mr O’Farrell’s campaign. They gave a total of $280,409 to the NSW Coalition party head offices and nine MPs during the 2007 election campaign.
For years the NSW Liberals have funnelled donations to the campaigns of individual MPs and local government councillors through head office so their major donors are hidden from public scrutiny.
Under Barry O’Farrell’s leadership the Coalition has always voted with Labor to block the Greens’ attempts to increase transparency of political donations disclosure.
The big question now is will O’Farrell be able to break with his party’s donations culture and take the critical step of banning all donations to the NSW Liberals from corporations and special interest groups?
Lee Rhiannon is the Greens’ donations spokesperson |
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http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/08/18/barry-ofarrell-sticks-his-neck-out-on-donations-reform/
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