Posted 19/11/09
Website: www.sos.org.au
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Wildhiland
Blog: http://www.sosnsw.blogspot.com
From Tony Rescei, President, SOS (Sydney)
We are getting there. Yesterday Premier Rees announced that political donations from developers will be banned.
We have come a long way from when the practice was first widely publicised. You may remember in 2001 I appeared in Quentin Dempster’s Stateline program, criticising the policy of Urban Consolidation, with the Planning Minister of the time Dr Refshauge defending it. Quentin Dempster said "But Tony Recsei smells a rat" and featured me bringing up the developer donation issue. Since then Quentin (and the Greens) have done magnificent work in helping to further publicise this practice, which, while legal up to this point, seems to have a public image akin to the illustration below which is most undesirable if we are to have an effective, workable government.
Of course Nathan Rees’ announcement will not end the problem. Parties can still get developer donations by other means such as from other states. And there are other practices that, while being legal, generate a negative public perception.
The Weekend Australian reports that in 2003 NSW treasurer Eric Roozendaal and federal minister Mark Arbib bought luxury beach-suburb townhouses from a prominent Sydney businessman who manages a company that has been a generous donor to the ALP.
We are told that, unlike official transfer documents relating to each of the other 18 apartments in the complex, the documents relating to the apartments bought by Mr Roozendaal and Senator Arbib do not disclose how much the men paid for the apartments. Mr Roozendaal sold his property in January last year for $1.05m. Senator Arbib on-sold his property for $960,000.
While there is no allegation that there is something wrong with such transactions, public perception is highly negative. The announcement by Premier Rees is a great step forward. But we still have a long way to go.