LibLabs and Moore buoyed by developer cash
February 28th, 2007
In the last five years the Labor government has received over $7 million in donations from developers and construction companies. The Liberal party got in excess of $4 million, and half of Clover Moore’s campaign funding to become Lord Mayor of Sydney was courtesy of
Living City Ltd, a large part of whose funds came from developer donations. The Lord Mayor also received a $1500 donation from local property developer C&A Haralambis.
“Only the Greens do not take political donations from developers. The LibLabs feed off them. But nothing comes without its price,” said Chris Harris.
“You only have to look at Minister Sartor’s approval of the Carlton United Brewery site to see how it works. The CUB development is going to have 11 blocks of apartments housing 2,800 residents, 4,800 workers, parking for 2,320 cars, towers up to 120 metres high, and around 500 apartments that could have little or no natural light.
“A previous independent study commissioned by Council recommended lower density and far fewer parking spots. Now, this development has nothing to do with looking after the needs of the people of Chippendale and everything to do with unmitigated developer greed.”
Clover Moore, at a Central Sydney Planning Committee meeting last year, voted with the government to increase density and car parking at the CUB site. She rationalised this by saying we needed to be mindful of the Government’s $30million levy on the developer and that we should understand that the developer needs to recover this cost.
“The developer ’s bottom line should not be a consideration in planning decisions,’ said Cr Harris.
“The Greens believe that for too long Sydney and NSW have been run for the benefit of powerful private interests whose profits have been booming at the expense of our community life and the environment. We need to legislate so that no independent or political party accepts funding from developers and that all parties and candidates identify the source of their donations before the commencement of an election.”
For the latest data on donations to the other political parties visit http://www.democracy4sale.org/
