Opinion | Sydney airport land deal makes ministers look like dunderheads and officials look like fools, writes CroweDM
Federal ministers had plenty of trouble on their minds when their officials agreed to buy land from a billionaire family to clear the way for a new airport in western Sydney.– more than 10 times the land value.
In Victoria, that means a payday for landholders near the construction sites of the future, like the Tullamarine airport link or the high-speed rail to Geelong. If the problems in the new audit are not fixed, they can easily be repeated. This is a national problem. He's the bass player of the government band: essential to the rhythm, comfortable at the back of the stage, happy to let the singer and lead guitarist grab the limelight.
What happened on their watch was a transfer of taxpayer funds to a wealthy political donor at a hugely inflated price. It stinks.First, the department began work in 2016 on a strategy to buy the land from the Leppington Pastoral Company, which is owned by Tony and Ron Perich, the sons of a Croatian immigrant who started farming the land in the 1950s.
Next, the officials in the Western Sydney Unit of the department ran 10 briefings with their bosses. Only three included the minister, and the last of these was in October 2016. The seven briefings after this kept senior public servants ignorant of key facts.Credit:Third, the officials changed their approach in November 2017 to a "less complex" purchase by agreement, rather than compulsory acquisition.
This audit is like few others. While it is common for the Auditor-General to offer soft reprimands, this one goes harder. It identifies behaviour within the department that was "not ethical" and "omitted" key facts. It says the department was "not accurate" about its own conduct.A parliamentary inquiry is likely.
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