Planning Minister Frank Sartor’s decision to overrule independent advice and approve a major residential development at Catherine Hill Bay continues the pattern of the Labor government favouring the interests of party donors.

Electoral Funding Authority figures released today reveal that Rosecorp, the developer behind the Catherine Hill Bay proposal, has made payments of over $219,000 to the NSW ALP since the commencement of the project’s planning and while the project was being considered for approval by Planning Minister Frank Sartor.

“Minister Sartor has a record of overruling or ignoring independent advice from expert panels and his own department when making decisions that have resulted in big financial windfalls to ALP donors,” said Sylvia Hale, NSW Greens MP and planning spokesperson.

“Approving Rosecorp’s development at Catherine Hill Bay is the latest in a series of highly questionable decisions by this
Minister.

“It shows that his claims that the new planning laws will depoliticise planning decisions are nonsense. Under the new laws the Minister can continue to override independent advice to make decisions that favour ALP donors.

“The NSW planning system continues to be corrupted by political donations and the government has done nothing to change that situation,” Ms Hale said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Media releases, Democracy, Community, Planning, Climate change, Local Government, Political donations, Corruption, Corporate welfare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.