Frank Sartor, the Planning Minister, is expected to drop controversial plans to allow government to acquire private land for developers, after rising public opposition from all political parties, including the Christian Democrats.
The property industry welcomed Sartor’s plans because they believed that it would cut red tape in the industry, but their support has waned after the Planning Institute of Australia said the planning act would still need to be redrafted.
If the changes went ahead, it would mean that the ability to acquire private land would rest in the hands of Sartor, who has been criticised for gathering too much power over property development to himself.
Sartor recently hit out at suggestions that he had too much control over individual developments, and appointed a three-member panel to advise him on contentious development projects. This would add another layer between the Planning Minister and the development process, and bring a halt to accusations that donations were a factor in his decisions on property development.

Plan dropped under cover

News has emerged that the Labor government quietly dismissed its plan for wireless inner-city broadband on the day of the Sydney Harbour boat crash. Eric Roozendal, the Minister for Commerce, announced that the plan would be shelved because it was not practical because of financial and technological concerns. The associated press release was not emailed to political journalists.
The question must be raised of why Roozendaal chose to make the announcement in the midst of the harbour tragedy.
A staffer of Mr Roozendaal said the announcement to scrap the plan was made on the day of the harbour crash because that is when the decision was taken. That is nonsense, pure and simple. Analysts said that the difficulty with building a wireless network in the city should have been obvious years ago, and the announcement to scrap the plan could have been made at any time.
This government has a history of dismissing projects when the media’s focus has turned elsewhere. It is indicative of a government that has no regard for releasing information in the public interest, but is more interested in managing its own image. By now, the public can see it as well.
A telecommunications market analyst at IDC Australia said the project sounded like “an election promise to get them over the line more than anything else” and that Labor would have known as early as the end of 2006 whether the project was viable.

Liberals finally speak up

The NSW Opposition has said that it would give conditional support for the electricity privatisation plan, provided that all the arrangements of the sale are overseen by the Auditor- General and that an independent organisation was established to watch the use of funds from the sale. The Coalition have set out a further three conditions the government must meet before their support will be given, and they have rejected the current plan, citing its lack of detail. The NSW Coalition has come under increasing criticism over the past week from the media and the government for refusing to state their position on the electricity privatisation plan. Previously Barry O’Farrell adopted a “wait and see” approach, demanding more details of the plan before making a statement.
Since O'Farrell became leader of the Opposition in NSW, they seem to have adapted a position of silence when it comes to government. This may be advantageous when the public is watching the government destroy itself, but when the government is doing something controversial, the Opposition needs to make itself heard. Otherwise a position of silence will turn into a position of invisibility. People are wary of what they cannot see.

Division in power

After the vote to sell off the electricity grid to the private market was defeated at the Labor state conference 702 votes to 107, Premier Morris Iemma has said he will defy the party and go through with the sale.
Iemma’s decision is, in his mind, and in the minds of Labor heavies like Michael Costa, the best way forward for NSW. But, it could also be a way backward for the party and the government, with his defiance threatening to split his MPs in Parliament. A number of MPs spoke against the sale during the state Labor conference, and Paul Gibson, the MP for Blacktown, sat behind the Premier at the conference in an anti-privatisation shirt.
Rudd has already called for unity among ALP members following the vote, telling them to “move forward”, but the NSW ALP president has called an urgent meeting of the party’s joint campaign committee following Iemma’s comments. Iemma will be forced to explain his position and his reasons for holding his ground to the committee.
There are three possible outcomes of this meeting. The committee could agree to back Iemma regarding the sale, which is unlikely. The second outcome is a stalemate, which will not be stale for long, given Iemma and Michael Costa’s determination to press ahead with the sale. Or it could cause a leadership spill.
The third option is the worst step the ALP can take. It will certainly damage the Labor party further than it has already, and it could also have a negative effect on Federal Labor. Rudd warned the NSW Labor conference yesterday that Labor held a slim margin federally and that too much division could cost the Federal Government public support at the next election.
This is not the time for the ALP to start questioning Iemma’s leadership of the party. That step may yet come, even though the Union’s NSW Secretary John Robertson said he would not speculate about Iemma’s leadership. Meanwhile, politicians from the other NSW parties are.
Malcolm Turnbull, a Federal member of NSW, said that the vote at the State Labor Conference was a rejection of Iemma’s leadership, and that Iemma has lost the confidence of the Labor party.

Government bans laser pointers

The Premier has announced that new high powered lasers will soon come under the classification of prohibited weapons, and that anyone using a laser will have to justify their use to the police, in an attempt to stop laser attacks on approaching aircraft. The punishment for breaking the new laws could be two years jail or a $5000 fine. The new bans have caused much division, with critics calling the new bans impractical, or accusing the government of heavy-handedness. The Opposition police spokesman, Mike Gallacher, called the statement a media stunt, and that outlawing a legal object would be difficult.
However, Mike Glynn, the acting president of the Australian and International Pilots Association, said the laws had to be put into place to deal with a serious threat.
It is difficult to discern what the new government’s intention is in implementing these new laws. The government has had a history of heavy handed behaviour regarding the police and law enforcement. Labour has previously given police new laws to search and arrest individuals without cause, in a move that many people have called draconian. Morris Iemma has called for the parents of truanting children to be jailed. This does not lend itself to the view that the government has reviewed all the options available in combating the use of lasers, but rather made a knee-jerk reaction
But it is fair to say that interfering with landing aircraft is dangerous, and a serious cause for concern. While it might not actually bring down a plane, it is incredibly foolish and a constant irritant to pilots, many of whom are flying with hundreds of people on board, or with medical cases. For the time being, the public must support the new laws by giving the government the benefit of the doubt.

Ombudsman to review FoI laws

A dangerous culture of withholding information from the public has grown up in NSW over the years of the state Labor governments. It is a pernicious spreading disease in this state, which affects the government itself, the universities, and the police.
The NSW government has repeatedly failed to examine the state’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. Not only that, but the government has made numerous changes to the laws to make it harder to access information. Any information released could both potentially damage the government’s image. With approval ratings as low as this government’s, and with the media so openly hostile, they would not dare to hold a review of the laws, much less overhaul them.
The FoI laws are stagnant, and so they favour those who wish to withold information, rather than those members of the public who wish to release it. As a result , other institutions, such as the universities, are taking advantage.
In an article in the SMH on April 26, Gerard Noonan wrote that in 2007, one out of every two requests to universities for information was ignored. Noonan then said that there are 23 different agencies that are exempt from FoI requests and 25 categories of reports that do not have to be released to the public.
Now the state Ombudsman, Bruce Barbour, who will review the FoI laws in lieu of the government’s refusal to take action over them, has made his irritation with the government widely known. In a statement, Barbour said “For almost 14 years, each NSW Ombudsman, including myself, has called for an independent and comprehensive review of the FoI Act. In the absence of the NSW government initiating a review of the act, I have decided to conduct my own independent review”.
Although a spokesman for the Premier said he would support the review, their complete disinterest in reviewing the laws does not bode well for their continued support in the coming months. By Barbour choosing to bypass the government’s opinion with his decision, Labor may well decide to kill the review before it makes a reccomendation.

Iemma attacks his own ministers

Premier Morris Iemma has lambasted several ministers of his government, criticising them for arrogance and telling them to work harder in their positions, following the continuing fiasco over political donations.
The attack was supported by Karl Bitar, the ALP general secretary, who told ministers they would be annihilated in the polls unless they put more effort into their game.
The dressing - down will not impress ministers in the government, several of whom think the 2011 election is unwinnable and are planning to retire at that time.
Iemma also delivered an attack on journalists, saying he would not “cop any more attacks from journalists and would be hitting back.”

An MP at the meeting said Iemma was frustrated that “everything he is trying to do gets slammed.”
MPs were not impressed at being brought in during the weekend to be criticised. “It was wrong to have the general secretary and the staff there,” said an MP. “Bitar and Murray (Iemma’s Chief of Staff) were just patronising.”
Iemma’s attack on his ministers is an indication that the debacle over political donations to NSW government is starting to hurt the Premier. While his demand that his ministers work harder is well-placed, his criticism of the media is not.
The unfriendliness of the media towards Iemma and the Labor government is brought on by years of ineptitude by the Iemma government. If a Labor minster display an unwillingness to govern in the interests of the people, it is the right, and the obligation, of the media to shine a light on their practices. It ensures the government will continue to govern to the best of its ability. The media isn’t attacking Iemma because they hold a grudge. They are attacking Iemma because he isn’t doing his job.

Political donations cause headaches for Labor

There is more evidence emerging that the NSW Government has been compromised by political donations, this time with the Transport Workers Union (TWU) in the mix. Not only that, but the donations run both ways, with the NSW government donating more than $700, 000 to the TWU at the same time that the TWU donated more than $746, 000 in suspected taxpayer grants back to the Labour party.
The NSW government has been funding the TWU and its associated organisations over the past six years. The TWU received $660, 000 from the government, while $73, 000 went to Concerned Families of Australian Truckies, an organisation devoted to truck drivers’ safety. The government has denied that the funding was used inappropriately, saying they were used for safety programs.
Political donations to any current government will always compromise that government’s ability to run the state fairly and impartially. Once the government has received any donation, they may no longer be able to make a decision that might impact on the people who donated the money for fear of halting other potential donations.
Such is the modus operandi of the NSW Government. They have received donations from so many people that they will never make a decision that might hurt those people who gave the donations. Simply put, they can no longer be trusted to make impartial decisions on the running of the state, whether it concerns land development, transport, or the unions.
The announcement from Premier Morris Iemma last month that he would ban all political donations is now a mute point. With the opposition stating they would ask the NSW Auditor- General to investigate the links between the funding to the TWU and the donations to the Labor party, and the Greens calling for a royal commission into political donations, the pressure on the government will continue.

Labor criticised for political donations

The news that property developers have donated more than $4 million to the Labor Party since Frank Sartor took control of large development applications provides damning evidence that the NSW government is too influenced by political donations, rather than governing in the best interests of the people.
Research by the Greens party found the biggest property developers paid more than $1 million to the Labor party while Sartor considered approving their developments across NSW. They are calling for a royal commission into the Government's approval process and donations.
Last week Greens MP Sylvia Hale introduced a bill making it illegal for political parties to accept donations from developers. It would make it illegal for any donor to put in a development application for a year after donating to a political party.
The Liberal party have called the property donations and subsequent approvals an “appalling” conflict of interest.
This comes after Premier Morris Iemma promised last month to ban all political donations, following the ICAC’s inquiry into bribes for development applications in Wollongong City Council. Iemma said the consultations on the donation reforms would take at least six months.
The Labor party has come under increasing criticism from other NSW political parties as well as from the NSW electorate for the political donations the Labor government receives from influential organisations such as the Australian Hotels Association (AHA). The AHA has donated enormously to the NSWS Labor government, creating a conflict of interest when the government recently ruled out extended trading hours for bars and hotels.
The Wollongong against Corruption group, formed in the wake of the Wollongong Council scandal, protested outside NSW Parliament House last week, calling for an end to donations to political parties.

Liberal party must reform

Barry O’Farrell is a formidable leader of the NSW Opposition. In the past year of his leadership, the Opposition have released a comprehensive transport strategy, and have begun ramping up its criticisms of the Government’s policies.
But it takes a unified party, as well a competent leader, to convince voters that the Liberals can lead the state. The antics of the Liberal Right in the electorate of Cook– in which Scott Morrison’s application to join a right wing branch was rejected by the right wing faction - have done much to damage the image O’Farrell has been building of a united Liberal party.
The right wing branch stacking taking place in the Liberal branch of Beecroft, with NSW shadow attorney general Greg Smith believed to be behind the actions, was also under the media spotlight, highlighting just how divided the Liberals are.
The factional brawling in the Liberal party is even making marks in the Student Liberal organisations, with one letter writer to the SMH condemning the right wing rhetoric of the Sydney University Liberal Club. This behaviour can only damage the Liberal party in the eyes of tertiary students, many of whom are young, first time voters.
O’Farrell has even hinted that the right wing factions control the party, saying last week that it will be difficult for the Coalition to be elected in 2011 without organisational reform.
This is a solution touted in an editorial in the SMH on April 4. The editor stated that one of the reasons the public refuses to vote for the Liberals is because it presents an image of a party at war with itself. For O’Farrell to win the election, he must reform the party to expel its disruptive influence. But he cannot do this without the help of Brendan Nelson and the federal and state directors.
The constant internecine brawling in the NSW party, constantly under the microscope of the national media, demonstrates how far the NSW Liberal party must progress before providing the people of NSW with a real alternative government.