In the corner of the room where Sydney’s housing affordability debate – in particular – is taking place, there resides an unaddressed and swaggering elephant. As brave calls grow for more sophisticated solutions to our city’s affordability woes – the one thing we refuse to confront is the disproportionate influence of the developer lobby.
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As humans, though, this is what we do. When genuinely prickly things need confronting – we delude ourselves and procrastinate instead. We whisper to ourselves “no problem lives here”, when in fact – we know one actually does. We kick cans down roads in order to avoid conflict. We pray that time will wield its magic and resolve things. Sometimes – time does.
However, when it comes to the issue of developer influence in New South Wales politics, time has only made matters worse. Far from dissipating, influence is now snowballing. Previously – single, controversial developments concerned us. Whereas today, the developer lobby is now one of the primary contributors to our city’s new master plan.
The raison d’être of a developer is…first and foremost to deliver profit for the investors in that enterprise. It’s not our job to deliver benefits for the community.”
None of this is hearsay or gossip. It is all on the public record. Ministerial diaries (available online) show who was met first and most often. Key planning announcements have been made at multiple developer-sponsored events, not community forums. The Property Council of Australia even reckons the Transport Oriented Development (TOD) concept was their idea, despite apparent disappointment about not getting what they were promised.
For all of the things left unsaid in this debate, reality is staring at us. In an interview with the SMH, Tom Forrest (chief executive of Urban Taskforce and chief of staff to former premier Morris Iemma) stated that: “The raison d’être of a developer is – believe it or not – not to produce community benefit. It’s first and foremost to deliver profit for the investors in that enterprise. It’s not our job to deliver benefits for the community.”
The motive here is clear. To be fair though, a developer’s business model is no different to many other businesses on the high street. That is: make a product (that is dwellings); manage costs; sell for the best price you can. Without a doubt, there are inspiring developers who are passionate about community-making, as well as the bottom line. Still, these fundamentals are pertinent.
Just like other industries, developers will always seek favourable conditions for their business. They will invest money and time into building relationships, to earn trust and favour, in order to increase sway. However, the problem we face today is that this industry has accumulated so much sway, that they’re now intimately involved in planning our city’s future. This happened on our watch.
Tell them to keep their noses out of planning
So, what can we do? Well, we could simply ask the developer lobby to keep their noses out of our planning system. Yet, they would simply tell us they’ve broken no rules.
We could ask our politicians to clarify the relationship, but they would simply say “nothing to see here”. The next government we elect will be just as embroiled as the last lot. It has been going on for decades. Nevertheless, the elephant needs addressing.
Of course, the irony here is that the opaque relationship between our political class and the developer lobby feels so obvious that it is pushing the public’s bullshit detector into overdrive.
The subsequent lack of trust is not only stifling government attempts to sell their plans to the electorate, it also undermining government credibility itself. Even without apparently anything to see, the public is peering straight through the smokescreen.
Furthermore, the lack of transparency around how the government’s plans were devised is making the public question who it’s actually for – us or the developers. Even the sandpit-simple slogan of “more supply” is struggling to stick. Frustrated, the government has resorted to insults. Anyone not wholeheartedly pro-development is labelled a NIMBY (not in my backyard). At times, it has resembled a school yard.
Intriguingly, Premier Chris Minns’ own alignment with the developer lobby brand will eventually cause him damage. A recent example of how this works is Tesla’s sliding share price after Elon Musk’s contentious takeover of Twitter. Minns wants to earn brownie points by appearing decisive. However, such brand association (amplified by a lack of transparency) could ultimately forge a hole in his brownie point bucket.
Time for a royal commission?
So what are our options?
Donation reform is key. Property developers are banned from making political donations in NSW. However, not so at the federal level. Therefore, major parties simply (and unaccountably) move funding with the party structure, bypassing such rules. Cooling off periods – the time after leaving parliament when a politician can work for a lobbyist – should be extended from one year to five. However, with the major parties often acting like a cartel, these improvements are some way off.
More urgently – we need a royal commission into the level of developer influence on government planning decisions. Done well, it would drag a fine-tooth comb through the detail and surface many things kept submerged. It would recommend fixes. It would throw fodder to the media, activating public discussion on the issue. After that, it would be difficult to return to the status quo.
When the public needed answers on police corruption and on paedophilia in the 1990s, the Wood Royal Commission was held. When six young adults died in a single summer in 2019, we held an inquest that resulted in recommendations to reduce potential harm at festivals. There have also been many recent calls for a royal commission into domestic violence.
Surely, with developer influence now permeating key planning decision making – the time is ripe for such a tool.
The core motive for the public here is to rebuild trust. Without such action, ongoing public trust in our planning process will remain scuppered. NSW’s future is far too precious to be left exposed to such self interest. It is up to us to demand reform.
Without it, the long-term liveability of our city will not only be compromised – but we will also continue to provide tacit permission for that unaddressed elephant in the corner, to swagger.
