“Good guy” O’Farrell still part of the mould

Barry O’Farrell would be feeling quite pleased with himself. He increased his vote in his state seat of Ku-ring-gai and he was unopposed when he decided to put his hand up for Liberal leadership.

As Mr O’Farrell works hard to exploit the honeymoon period enjoyed by new leaders with the soccer dad interviews and the happy family photo opportunities it is worth checking out how the new leader performed in the recent state election.

A big concern for Ku-ring-gai voters is over development. The local MP and newly elected Liberal leader worked hard to present himself and his party as leading the good fight against the evil Planning Minister Frank Sartor during the election. Time and time again he told the locals that he and his party opposed the terrible laws that the Labor government brought in to assist all those developers that are eyeing off the development potential of Sydney’s north shore suburbs.

A quick check of Hansard shows that Mr O’Farrell either has a faulty memory or is a master of spin and deception on this issue.

In June 2005 the member for Ku-ring-gai and all his Coalition colleagues supported the NSW government’s Part 3A amendments to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.  The combined vote of Labor, Liberal and National MPs delivered unprecedented power to the Planning Minister. Whoever has that job can now deliver for their party’s developer mates as they can ignore environmental and heritage laws and the Minister does not even have to follow advice from his or her Director General.

But in the recent NSW state election Mr O’Farrell and his Coalition colleagues were telling anyone who would listen that they voted against changes to the planning laws. Mr O’Farrell often claims that he spoke against the planning bill when it came into parliament.

Checking out the Hansard record for this parliamentary debate brings the new Liberal leader’s spin to a quick stop.

There is no record of the Ku-ring-gai MP speaking in the debate. He did speak against a subsequent Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment Bill in 2006, which dealt mostly with technical drafting amendments.  He did give an adjournment speech where he raised concerns about the planning process.  But he failed the planning test when he voted for the infamous Part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Infrastructure and Other Planning Reform) Bill 2005 that delivered such absolute power to the Planning Minister.

Coalition MPs in fact voted with the government twice to pass this legislation. Once was in the Legislative Assembly and once in the Legislative Council. In the Upper House there was a chance that the bill could have been defeated if the Coalition had voted with the Greens to oppose the Bill and we could have won support from other cross benchers. But instead they chose to vote with the government so the legislation was passed.

When pressed, Barry O'Farrell told his local paper during this election that the 2006 planning laws his party opposed were more significant than the 2005 laws they passed by voting with the Government.  What an insult to the community campaigners who know full well that the Part 3A changes introduced in 2005 were the developer’s meal ticket.

During the recent election campaign Liberal MPs have worked hard to maintain the charade of their “opposition” to the evil planning laws. But what they cannot hide is that many of their speakers strongly backed the changes that they now vilify.

Chris Hartcher Liberal member for Gosford said in debate “The Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Infrastructure and Other Planning Reform) Bill in many aspects adopts Coalition policy.”