2025-10-18
Documents show property developer lobby firm, headed up by Premier Chris Minns’ mentor, former Labor Premier Morris Iemma, has seen a massive increase in developer clients and it has had regular access to Premier’s office and decision makers in the NSW Department of Planning since the Minns Government came to power. Revelations come as NSW Upper House is debating the Government’s radical overhaul of the planning system that will make development approvals
Comments attributable to Greens MP and spokesperson for planning and environment Sue Higginson:
“It looks like Premier Chris Minns is joining the list of NSW Premiers and Labor MPs who have failed on integrity and anti-corruption expectations,”
“What the documents reveal is deeply troubling and it's in the same week that the Premier and the Planning Minister are rushing through radical changes to the planning system which make it easier for developers to get approvals for large scale and environmentally harmful development. There's no more common place where integrity failures and corruption manifest than in the NSW planning and development system. I can barely believe we are here again, the people of NSW should be able to trust the integrity of our political systems, but they clearly can’t,”
“Just this week the Centre for Public Integrity joined a cacophony of planning and environment experts ringing alarm bells about Premier Chris Minns’ planning and development system overhaul and the weakening of anti-corruption safeguards in the system. It is clear they are right to be concerned. The Government’s changes are being debated in the NSW Upper House right now. They remove anti-corruption safeguards, wind back environmental protections and they weaken community participation. I will once again be calling on the Upper House to reflect harder on what is before us and refer the bill to an inquiry, there is too much at stake to just rush these changes through, especially in light of these new revelations of how the Government does business,”
“The property development industry is billions of dollars of vested interest and it exerts significant and undue influence on all levels of Government. Its business model involves riding roughshod over local communities, causing harm to the environment and exerting influence over people in positions of power all in the name of profit. For Premier Chris Minns to suggest there is nothing to see here when it’s a well known there is a special relationship between himself and former Premier Morris Iemma and to liken the type of access Iemma has been getting to NGO housing advocate access is frankly frightening.”