POLITICAL DONATIONS

The Hon. M. PARNELL (14:55): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question about donations to political parties by property developers.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Last year, the government moved to extend the urban growth boundary for metropolitan Adelaide, including new land in Blakeview. Unlike most of the areas announced for inclusion in the expanded boundary, this land at Blakeview was set aside for immediate housing development. One of the most active property developers in the Blakeview area is the Pickard Group, which contains Land SA and Fairmont Homes. Fairmont Homes recently spent $20 million to purchase greenfield land in Blakeview for housing development, and it is set to expand further in this area.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission figures, on 1 and 4 June 2007 Land SA gave three separate donations totalling $35,000 to the South Australian branch of the ALP, to add to the $4,900 it had donated already in December 2006. Just one month later in July 2007 minister Holloway announced the urban growth boundary extension. Nationally, property developers are very generous donors to the ALP. In New South Wales well over $2 million was donated to the Labor Party in the past year from some of Australia's biggest property developers—and we read about that daily in the paper—while the Rudd campaign last year benefited by almost $500,000. Former prime minister Paul Keating said:

I think we would be better off if developers were forbidden from donating election funds to municipal candidates and to political parties.

Major property developers, including Multiplex and Lend Lease, have made donations previously but have now stopped donating to political parties. According to The Australian newspaper, at the time of announcing its decision Lend Lease said that it had given to political parties to support the democratic process but that donations were increasingly perceived as buying influence. My questions are:

1. What assurances will the minister give the South Australian public that his decision to expand the urban growth boundary was not related to the fact that property developers, including Land SA, are major donors to the South Australian branch of the Labor Party?

2. Does he accept that a flurry of donations by a land developer just before the government makes a major decision to release new land for development must raise legitimate questions about the level of influence donations to political parties have over discretionary ministerial decisions?

3. Does he agree with former prime minister Paul Keating that property developers should not be able to donate to political parties?

4. What steps will he take to ensure that discretionary decisions made by Labor ministers are not influenced by the amount the ALP receives in political donations?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Police, Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning) (14:58): I resent the implications in that question. The Hon. Mark Parnell has been out peddling this sleaze in the media, and he has a few willing conspiracy theorists in one newspaper who believe that somehow or other these government decisions are related to donations. If the honourable member has any evidence he should go outside and say it. But, of course, he will not find any evidence, because there isn't any. I have no idea who has given donations. Until the honourable member brought it up then in relation to the Blakeview land, I had no idea who owned the land and whether that company—or any other company for that matter—had given donations to the Labor Party.

We had this sort of thing with major projects. I did discover something in relation to Bradken. This government has been strongly criticised in relation to the Bradken decision. It was made a major project. As I understand it, Bradken gave a donation of $12,500 to the New South Wales Liberal Party which then donated a similar sum of $12,500—of course, it could have been completely unrelated—to the Liberal Party here. I understand that no donation was made to the Australian Labor Party.

The Hon. R.D. Lawson interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: I am sticking to the point all right. The whole collection of members opposite throw around muck. That is a classic example. The decision for me to declare that a major project was based on its merits—as, indeed, are all other decisions that I make as Minister for Urban Development and Planning. I do not know who makes donations to parties. The first I heard of the decision to which I just referred was when it had been in the press, when the Electoral Commission had released those figures—and I do not really care.

In relation to Blakeview, if the honourable member wants to talk about Blakeview, I challenge him to go and have a look at a map of the growth boundary for Adelaide and say where else he believes the boundary should be expanded. Where else does it make sense to grow the boundary of Adelaide? Blakeview is so glaringly obvious, since it is contiguous with current development. We know that the northern suburbs are where there is the most pressure, and Blakeview is an obvious area for Adelaide to grow. If one looks at those areas that have been put in the growth boundary, one will see that they were exhaustively examined by Planning SA over a period of 12 months, and they make sense.

I am happy to debate any of those decisions on their merits, but let us do it on their merits. Let us not have this suggestion that the honourable member is putting forward that it is related to some donation. If he has any evidence of that, let him come forward, but otherwise let us debate all these decisions on their merits. I am quite happy to defend the decision in relation to Blakeview—or, indeed, any of those other decisions in relation to the urban growth boundary. If the honourable member really believes that, I challenge him to tell us, if he had been minister for urban development and had not chosen Blakeview, where else he would have extended the urban growth boundary.