NSW Labor leader Michael Daley chaired the Randwick City Council committee that signed off on a development application for the Obeid family’s business partners, making the developer up to $15 million on townhouses built on land formerly zoned open space.
Mr Daley claims he did not want to rezone the land from open space but was obliged to vote with his Labor colleagues, who supported it.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal for the first time Mr Daley’s role in chairing the committee that approved the multimillion-dollar townhouse complex in Maroubra, which made headlines when it was constructed and two of the townhouses were sold to Mark Arbib and Eric Roozendaal.
Eddie Obeid’s son, Moses, also rented one of the townhouses for two years, where Mr Arbib and his wife were neighbours.
Mr Daley, who thanked Eddie Obeid in his maiden speech to parliament in 2005, chaired the committee and signed the minutes on the meeting that granted a development application for a $4.1 million multi-unit development to go ahead on land that was previously private open space.
It made millions for one of the Labor Party’s biggest donors, property developers Brian and Garry Boyd, who also donated to Mr Daley’s Labor team council campaign.
Randwick mayor at the time, Dominic Sullivan, who remains close friends with Mr Daley, went on to become general manager of the Boyd family development company, PAYCE, where he has worked since 2006 and earns $380,000 a year, according to the 2016 annual report.
The Boyds went on to sell each of the 20 townhouses for up to $785,000 each — meaning they stood to make $15 million from the townhouse complex Mr Daley helped approve.
There is no suggestion of impropriety on the part of the Boyds, Mr Sullivan, Mr Roozendaal or Mr Arbib.
Mr Daley also supported the 1999 rezoning of the land from private open space for the Boyds to develop. They bought the land through a holding company, Telmet Ventures, prior to the council agreeing to rezone the land. The Boyds paid $1.42 million for the block of land on January 5, 1999.
When the rezoning was successful, the Valuer General’s valuation of the land went up from $1 million to $1.35 million.
The rezoning went ahead despite strong community objection, including from the Maroubra Precinct Committee and a petition forwarded by then premier Bob Carr, who was the local MP. The building’s exterior wall also breached the height limit for the area by 2m.
Last night Mr Daley said he was unaware the Boyd brothers were business partners and close friends of the Obeid family when he voted in favour of rezoning the land. “I did not know Mr Obeid until 2005 after I was elected to parliament,” he said.
He said he opposed the “spot rezoning” of the site at council “believing that the land had been a community grant to the Maroubra Bowling Club and as such it should be returned to a community use”.
“My recollection is that when this matter was first voted on my position prevailed … the developers came back to council and it was discovered the RSL held freehold title to the land,” he said
this is a guy who now pretends hes now anti developer.....
..is there no end to the corruption in the Labor party
funny how hes now the LEADER....
