Memories of the NSW government compulsorily acquiring homes in Sydney’s inner west several years ago for the $16.8 billion WestConnex motorway project will remain raw for many of those whose lives were upended as a result. Many of those ejected had been living in their homes for decades and the upheaval rippled across communities. Aside from the emotional toll, homeowners were forced to sell their properties to the state at a price many argued denied them the opportunity to buy elsewhere in their suburbs due to the strong property market at the time.
So revelations by the Herald that the government paid three times as much as the Valuer-General’s estimate for a highly contaminated parcel of industrial land at Camellia, near Parramatta, will be sure to have enraged some of those forced out of their homes in the inner west.
The Camellia land deal in 2016 – that earned Sydney property developer Billbergia a $15 million windfall in a matter of months – occurred at about the same time as the state was forcibly acquiring homes in suburbs such as St Peters and Haberfield for WestConnex.
The revelations also come just two months after federal Auditor-General Grant Hehir was scathing of the Commonwealth in a report into its handling of the purchase of 12 hectares of land next to the site of Western Sydney Airport for $30 million in 2018 from a billionaire farming family. In that case, the federal government paid 10 times what the property – dubbed the Leppington triangle – was deemed to be worth less than a year later.
In the public’s mind, the two deals will serve to undermine confidence in the system. At the very least, it will reinforce perceptions that one system exists for small property owners and another for wealthy and powerful landholders. The deals also raise suspicions that they are only the tip of the iceberg in a city where mammoth fortunes are made – and lost – over property. The recent anti-corruption inquiry hearings into disgraced former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire have shone a spotlight on the extent to which large property owners and developers have been able to gain access to decision-makers.
