Minister for Planning Fundraising and Tralee Residential Development

Mr ANDREW STONER: My question is directed to the Minister for Planning. How can the public believe that the Minister has never, ever, allowed donations to influence his decisions when his approval of the Tralee development was in direct contradiction of the advice of his independent panel, the views of his two predecessors in the Planning portfolio and the views of the Federal Minister for Energy and Tourism, who warned him to not think about lining the pockets of one developer?

Mr FRANK SARTOR: The Leader of The Nationals is getting confused between the former Federal shadow Minister and the current Federal Minister. I am glad that I have the opportunity to explain the Queanbeyan situation because I stand by these decisions 110 per cent. Let us be clear about the situation relating to Queanbeyan. Queanbeyan needs 10,000 new homes in the next 25 years. It has been agreed with the Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory that the New South Wales Government should supply 10 per cent of the housing needs of the Canberra-Queanbeyan region over the next 25 years as land and housing prices in Queanbeyan are rising. The situation for the Government is very simple: We have a draft Sydney to Canberra corridor plan that recommends a certain amount of development, including the expansion of housing in Queanbeyan. Our strategies in metropolitan Sydney, in the Hunter and everywhere in this State are about 25 years of land supply and about providing adequate land in multiple ownership to provide affordable housing for people of this State. That is what is driving these decisions, and nothing but that.

Let us get to the facts. By the time I am finished the Opposition will not enjoy my answer. In 2000 Steve Whanbefore he was elected the member for Monaro and before the current developers bought options on their landargued that some areas needed to be released for land supply for Queanbeyan. When I became the Minister for Planning I had to address the problems of there being no land releases and the intractable fight between the Canberra airport, the Queanbeyan City Council and the Queanbeyan community. I will go through the facts one by one. I will not skip anything today, because Opposition members want to trash someone's reputation and skirt over the facts. They want to forget the facts, but I will go through them one by one. I do not care how long it will take me or how boring it will be. I will explain this in great detail.

Mr Andrew Stoner: Point of order—

Mr FRANK SARTOR: You asked for it!

The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for East Hills to order.

Mr Andrew Stoner: I refer to Standing Order 129, which relates to relevance. I fear that the Minister will blather on for too long without addressing the substantive issue. Why did the Minister go against the advice?

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of The Nationals will resume his seat. The Minister's answer is relevant to the question that was asked.

Mr FRANK SARTOR: At the time I convened a panel to look at certain issues relating to the redevelopment of Queanbeyan. That panel considered a range of matters and came up with a short-term to medium-term land supply strategy. The panel recommended that we release Googong, with between 5,000 and 7,000 dwellings, which would meet demand for 10 to 15 years. The panel also, for some reason, recommended that I supply enough land for 200 years of industrial use, which I found a little difficult to understand. Even Canberra objected to that recommendation. In my view the panel did not adequately address affordable housing. However, it was an important input to the process.

We looked at the panel's recommendations. I thought to myself that I could accept the Googong recommendation, even though the land is a lot further south, a lot further away from Queanbeyan and therefore had significant infrastructure implications for new roads. The problem is that it would allow for one monopoly developer to supply land in Queanbeyan. Do we like the idea of a monopoly developer controlling land prices? Maybe that developer is a mate of the Opposition. I am told the Opposition got a donation from that monopoly developer. So they do not get backing just by developers; they want monopoly development.

The SPEAKER: Order! Members will cease interjecting.

Mr FRANK SARTOR: Anyone who knows anything about land supply knows that you have to have adequate supply to keep downward pressure on land prices. It is pretty basic economics. I would have thought that the Opposition would understand that. So, faced with the proposition of allowing one developer to control and drip-out a little more housing in Queanbeyan when it suited him, I had to see whether other options would expand land supply in Queanbeyan. What did I do? I consulted extensively. I met with the community, who, by the way, want the development in Queanbeyan. I have a petition containing the signatures of 680 residents of Queanbeyan. It states:

the recommendations of the Queanbeyan Land Inquiry propose to impose industrial development on the residents of Jerrabomberra—

that is, the 12,000 hectares of industry for 200 years—

and deny community facilities including a new local High School. These recommendations are not supported by evidence to the Inquiry and are contrary to the evidence.

Your undersigned petitioners therefore ask the Legislative Assembly—

it is a petition to this House—

to ignore the recommendations of the Inquiry and endorse the development of Tralee and Environa in a manner which will result in the Jerrabomberra High School and various community facilities, and will not result in industrial development.

This petition is from 680 Queanbeyan votersobviously all in the pocket of the Australian Labor Party, every single one of them!

Mr Adrian Piccoli: Point of order

The SPEAKER: Order! Government members will cease interjecting.

Mr Adrian Piccoli: I refer to Standing Order 129, which relates to relevance. I understand that the Minister stands by his planning decisions 110 per cent. The question is specific: it is about what measures the Minister has taken to make sure—

The SPEAKER: Order! I have heard enough of the member's point of order. The member will resume his seat. The point of order related to relevance. The Minister's answer is relevant to the question that was asked.

Mr FRANK SARTOR: As if that petition back in those days was not enough, only last week—I sit down on the weekend or late on Sunday night reading my correspondence—I received a letter from the residents of Jerrabomberra. I had met with them at a Cabinet meeting in Cooma and discussed the issue with them. Members would know that residents line up and want to meet the various Ministers. Interestingly, after I had met with the residents I said, "Look guys, I am trying to resolve some of these ambit claims by the airport. I have met with Minister Albanese, the new transport Minister. We are trying to work through the detail." They were very upset and wrote a letter that stated:

Thank you again for your time yesterday.

I need to convey that I am disappointed at the lack of progress made by the NSW Government in furthering the rezoning of the Jerrabomberra Valley and the commencement of the development of the Jerrabomberra Anglican Secondary School.

The community has told me that the Government is going too slow, not that it is going too fast. In those files one could probably find five or ten letters from the city of Queanbeyan imploring us to do it. As I said, I have met with representatives of the city of Queanbeyan a number of times, I have met with the residents a number of times and I have met with representatives of the airport several times. Guess who the airport is funding?

Mr Adrian Piccoli: Point of order: I again refer to Standing Order 129. The question was specific. If the Minister is trying to tell us—

The SPEAKER: Order! I have ruled on the point of order. Some aspects of the question were broad. I suggest that the member for Murrumbidgee read the question again. The Minister's answer is relevant to the question. I will not hear any more points of order in relation to Standing Order 129, unless the Minister deviates from his relevant answer. The member for Murrumbidgee will resume his seat.

Mr Adrian Piccoli: Mr Speaker, the question is very simple.

The SPEAKER: Order! I ask the member for Murrumbidgee to resume his seat. I call the member for Murrumbidgee to order. I call the member for Murrumbidgee to order for the second time. I call the member for Murrumbidgee to order for the third time. I ask the Serjeant-at-Arms to remove the member for Murrumbidgee from the Chamber.

[The member for Murrumbidgee left the Chamber, accompanied by the Serjeant-at-Arms.]

The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for Bathurst to order.

Mr FRANK SARTOR: Let me continue telling the story of Queanbeyan because it is a long story. It is a story of assiduous work, because we looked at everything very carefully. After the various discussions with the airport and everyone else, I invited the City of Queanbeyan to put to me what it thought the residential strategy ought to be, which it did. I also had during the course of that, I might add, a number of discussions with Gary Nairn, who was a former Howard Government Minister and the member for Eden Monaro. I have a nice little press clipping here in which Gary Nairn endorsed the redevelopment of this area, of Tralee. He endorsed it and he and I had a number of telephone conversations about it. He rang me several times and spoke to me about it. Having done all that, I invited Queanbeyan City Council to produce a proposal, which they did. They said, "Go ahead with Googong but we want another 5,000 dwellings around Tralee, Poplars and Environa." They are, basically, all on the western side of the rib of development in Queanbeyan.

When the proposal came to my department it did what it normally does: it looked at it thoroughly, we had further discussions and it came up with a recommendation. The recommendation of my department, which I endorsed and approved, was really quite simple. Contrary to this being some sort of rash decision favouring one developer, we allowed Googong to go ahead with 5,000 dwellings but said the developers had to deal with some transport issues. That was recommended by the inquiry, so it got a tick. It is a lot further away, there are issues, but it got a tick. We allowed that to go ahead because housing is needed. We reduced the amount of employment land to 100 hectares, which is about 25 years' supply. We did not really need 200 years' supply. We deleted that from the northernmost residential precinct, Poplars, because of the uncertainty over the noise contour.

Incidentally, when all this was happening the airport operator wanted to introduce another stunt. Members should remember that airports these days are no longer run by governments, they are run by the private sector. Who did all this? The Federal Government. Remember Sydney Airport Corporation Limited wanting to put a shopping centre at the end of the third runway? Shoppers would have needed earmuffs with their shopping trolleys. They would have needed earmuffs every time they went to the supermarket. Capital Airports Group, the operator of Canberra Airport is, to all intents and purposes, another developer. It is just another developer that has funded the Liberal Party. It suits that company's strategic interests, both in terms of its own land use and in sterilising that land, to have no-one living in the general vicinity. There was a noise contour that we had all been following and adhering to and suddenly Capital Airport Group produced a new noise contour based on assumptions that in 2050 there would still be 747s flying everywhere, it would become a 24-hour freight hub, and a million other things it threw in just to push the noise contours up.

Where did that leave this poor hard-working Minister for Planning? The Minister said, "I think they're telling me lies but I've got to take it seriously." I have to take seriously what everyone says to me, even when I think they are telling me lies, including the Opposition. Well, the Opposition always tells me lies. What did we do? I took a very cautious approach in this decision. We said no to the northern end, which is closer to the airport; we said the middle bit, North Tralee and Environa, would be deferred while we tried to find out the truth about the future noise contours. We want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That is what we look for. In relation to the southern end, Tralee South, which is further away from the airport, we said we would allow a process to begin to accommodate 2,000 dwellings.

So, out of the 5,000 dwellings these developers wanted, I gave the go-ahead in principle for a process to deliver 2,000. I did not approve a rezoning or a development; I just allowed a process to begin. Not only did I do that, I said also, "You will need to provide community facilities, deal with the airport noise issues and so on." This is the enormous scandalous travesty of how we handled Queanbeyan, and 7,500 potential dwellings, which had been flagged in this decision, is still not enough. I need to find another 2,500. I need to supply enough land owned by enough property owners and developers so the people of Queanbeyan can get decent housing at a reasonable price. We imposed all these conditions and a process is happening.

When the good Lord smiled upon us and put Kevin Rudd and his Government into power in Canberra, I knew I had a Federal Minister I could go and talk to, so I did. I met Anthony Albanese and said, "Anthony, I've got this problem. In the old days governments controlled noise contours and airports, but now private developers are doing this. They have come up with all these dodgy contours and they have no obligation to buy land. If a mining company was imposing this proposal on anyone else it would have to buy the land, but Capital Airports Group, that great funding source for the Liberal Party, does not seem to care about that. We need to find a sensible way through for all airports. What are we going to do?" He is looking at that at a national level.

The Federal and State governments are having joint discussions to try to find out the truth about this noise contour so I can settle the development envelope in that area. I make no apology for the fact that we need to release more land. Whenever land is released, one developer or another will benefit. What I will not do is allow the Coalition's favoured developer to have a monopoly supply of land in Queanbeyan. This matter did not stop there. After I made the decision, this House debated the matter. In fact, the motion before the House was:

That this House welcomes the decision by the Minister for Planning to secure the expansion of Queanbeyan through approval of future development at Googong and in the Jerrabomberra Valley.

That is Tralee. The member for Monaro moved a motion in this House, which was debated. During the debate, the member for Wakehurst said, "Minister Sartor and the Government should be working with the people who can bring this land to the market at a reasonable price." Brad, you are a fool!

Mr Brad Hazzard: Point of order. The Minister is a fool because he took $164,000 for the Labor Party before he made the decision.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Wakehurst will resume his seat. He has not taken a valid point of order.

Mr FRANK SARTOR: What about some of your fundraisers, Brad? Just be careful, Brad.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Minister will address his remarks through the Chair.

Mr FRANK SARTOR: At the end of the debate in this Chamber, the New South Wales Parliament reviewed one of my decisions, and the motion was put and carried on the voices. There was not even a division. This House endorsed my decision on 27 September last year. So much for a hidden secret deal! There is more. The Coalition has asked for this. The Wran Labor Government introduced laws to require disclosure of political donations and election funding. The very reason we can have this debate is because of the transparency that we, the Labor Party, introduced. Guess what the Liberal Party said at the time?

The Election Funding Bill asked for two things: strict disclosure requirements and public funding. The Coalition opposed it because it had all these undisclosed private donations. The Leader of the Opposition at the time said, "The Opposition is totally and absolutely opposed to the principle of the legislation. Some measures of the legislation are the most horrendous assaults on the rights of the individual this Parliament has ever seen, such as the right of freedom to express support for a political party and the right to privacy. The Opposition opposes this legislation and will do so in every possible way."

There have been 18 amendments to the Election Funding Act provisions and the Coalition has opposed every one of them. What did Howard do about election funding? Let us be really clear. There used to be a $1,500 threshold so that anyone who donated more than that would be identified on the public record. When it all went to Howard's head after he won a majority in the Senate, he increased the threshold to $10,500. Opposition members have no moral authority on this issue whatsoever. The disclosures that we have now are because of our side of politics.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier will cease interjecting.

Mr FRANK SARTOR: That is right; we have done everything to tighten up the rules. The Premier has already said that we will tighten up the rules even further. Opposition members—some people charitably refer to them as scumbags, but I will not—continue to try to trash people's reputations. The Leader of the Opposition tried to do that before the last election and look where that got him. He is on a road to nowhere in his attempt to try to trash people's reputations. Look at the merits of every one of my decisions and look at the public record.

The SPEAKER: Order! The House will come to order.