Stockland – NSW ALP – and *part* of the answer is:
Posted by reformwcc on December 18, 2009
“Revealed: ALP donor projects Keneally approved
JOSEPHINE TOVEY Sydney Morning Herald December 14, 2009
KRISTINA KENEALLY personally approved at least three contentious development applications by major Labor Party donors as minister for planning, despite promising they would be determined by an independent panel.
In January she approved two Stockland developments in Vincentia, on the South Coast, and in October she signed off on an industrial facility in Erskine Park being built by one of her party’s biggest donors, Jacfin.
The moves contradicted one of her earliest promises when she took over the planning portfolio from Frank Sartor last year, to pass all such decisions to an independent panel called the Planning Assessment Commission.
In an effort to defuse ongoing controversy about political donations influencing planning approvals, Ms Keneally issued a statement on November 6 last year, promising: “The commission will play a significant role in depoliticising the planning system by standing in the shoes of the minister and determining all development applications where a developer has made a political donation within the past two years.”
Despite this, she approved two Stockland developments in Vincentia: the first stage of a new shopping centre on January 7 and a retirement village on January 28.
Between 2003 and 2007, Stockland donated $105,000 to NSW Labor.
….
In the wake of the Wollongong development scandal, the Government amended the laws on October 1 last year and required that all reportable political donations (those exceeding $1000) had to be declared when lodging a development application.
Because the Jacfin and Stockland applications were lodged before October 1, they did not include such declarations.
”At the time the application was lodged, the minister of planning was the consent authority and that was how the project was assessed and determined,” a spokesman for Ms Keneally said.
The Opposition’s spokesman on planning, Brad Hazzard, said Ms Keneally should have delegated the matters regardless.”
full SMH story:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/revealed-alp-donor-projects-keneally-approved-20091213-kqhk.html
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