Wollongong Local Environment Plan

Ms SYLVIA HALE [2.16 a.m.]: I understand that the Director General of Planning is currently considering whether to allow the draft Wollongong local environmental plan [LEP] to go on public exhibition. I believe that the draft local environmental plan should not go on exhibition at this time and that it should be returned to the council with an instruction to undertake a thorough and open investigation to ensure that any proposed rezonings have been put forward on the basis of merit and not on the basis of corrupt or partial dealings with certain Wollongong developers. I have good reason for concern about the way in which the draft local environmental plan has been put together. In July this year I was provided with information that Frank Vellar, the developer named by ICAC in its report on Wollongong City Council as engaging in "serious corrupt conduct", had two currently empty mansions on the Illawarra escarpment at Corrimal recommended for retrospective approval as part of the draft local environmental plan.

It has been alleged that these mansions were built illegally on land zoned for environmental protection. A Wollongong council report found that the Vellar construction site contributed to damage to houses on land below the Vellar property caused by the 1998 Wollongong flood. Documents obtained by the Greens show that Wollongong council, rather than prosecuting Mr Vellar, spent nearly $140,000 of public funds repairing drainage problems on the escarpment caused by his illegal building works. Disgraced former council employee and Australian Labor Party member Joe Scimone was head of the council's engineering department at the time the remediation work was undertaken at council expense. The recommendation to rezone the Vellar land to allow the houses was contained in a draft local environmental plan approved by the disgraced Wollongong council the night before it was dismissed.

Following the public exposure of this scandalous rezoning proposal, the council's administrators withdrew the Vellar mansions site from the draft local environmental plan. That leaves unanswered the question that must be answered: How did the Vellar rezoning find its way into the draft local environmental plan in the first place? I have a very real concern that it was put there as a result of partial, if not corrupt, dealings involving Mr Vellar and officers of the council. There is the additional question concerning how many other proposed rezonings in the draft local environmental plan may be the result of inappropriate or corrupt dealings with developers. Consider, for example, the proposed rezoning of lands at Tallawarra. I raised this matter in the House in May and I do not believe that the issues I raised at that time have been addressed.

The background to the proposed Tallawarra rezoning is that in 2003, in a secret deal, the Carr Government sold to the company TXU Australia, for an upfront payment of $4 million, the publicly owned Tallawarra lands, which comprise some 600 hectares and nearly six kilometres of Lake Illawarra frontage. A further $11 million was to be paid later when a power station was operating on 65 hectares of the site. A condition of this bonanza for the company was that it build a gas-fired power station. In return, some of the remaining 535 hectares could be sold to provide further employment opportunities, and the rest was to be retained for environment conservation. I doubt whether anyone would be surprised to learn that TXU donated $11,000 to the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party at around the time of its secret deal with the Government.

In 2005, the China Light and Power Company, known in Australia as TRUenergy, bought TXU and, with it, the Tallawarra site. We know from council documents that there was a cosy relationship between some Wollongong council officers and representatives of TRUenergy throughout this time. The proposed rezoning will allow for the development of a huge housing estate on the Tallawarra lands. The local environment study [LES] prepared by TRUenergy forms the basis for the draft LEP in relation to Tallawarra. I believe that the LES, prepared as it was on behalf of the proponent, is questionable and needs to be set aside. An LES undertaken independently of TRUenergy, as required by law, should be prepared before any rezoning proposal for Tallawarra is given further consideration. I believe that the draft Wollongong local environmental plan should be sent back to the council and an open and independent inquiry undertaken into all the rezoning proposals contained in that plan. The people of Wollongong have the right to know that any local environmental plan is drafted on the basis of what is best for the community, not on what is best for corrupt developers.

Question—That this House do now adjourn—put and resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.


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