Newcastle’s heavy rail services should be immediately reinstated and all planning decisions about land in the city should be handed to Newcastle City Council, a parliamentary committee has recommended.
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The upper house inquiry into Newcastle planning decisions released its final report on Tuesday after five months of investigations and public hearings.
The inquiry has focused much of its attention on the state government’s decision to cut the heavy rail line into Newcastle CBD and establish a light rail network and major transport interchange.
The multi-party committee released two findings and nine recommendations as a result of the inquiry.
It found that Hunter Development Corporation general manager Bob Hawes “had a significant and ongoing conflict of interest in being a landowner at Wickham and having a managerial role in the NSW Government’s decision to truncate the Newcastle rail line at Wickham, a decision from which Mr Hawes stands to financially benefit”.
The second finding noted that the HDC board “failed to adequately address the conflict of interest of Mr Robert Hawes, and this failure has damaged public confidence in the integrity of the Hunter Development Corporation and public decision making in Newcastle and the broader Hunter Region”.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption said recently that it would not investigate Mr Hawes’ role in the rail decision.
The Nile report did not accuse Mr Hawes or any MPs of corruption.
The report recommended that Newcastle City Council should take over from the state government as the planning authority for land in Newcastle city, including land owned or managed by HDC.
It also recommended that the government immediately reinstate infrastructure that has recently been removed from the rail corridor as well as the heavy rail service into the CBD.
Pro-rail advocacy group Save Our Rail released a statement via social media after the report was released.
“The proper planning processes were abandoned in the rush to maximise profits to be derived from the development of the rail corridor,” the statement noted.
“It is SOR’s view that the Baird government corrupted the planning process for profit.”
Greens MP John Kaye said the report exposed a failure to resolve conflicts of interest.
Liberal MP Catherine Cusack, who was part of the committee, told media outlets yesterday that the inquiry had been a witch hunt.
In the report, committee chairman Christian Democratic Party leader Rev Fred Nile wrote that the committee was convinced that the decision to cut the rail line was based on a flawed cost-benefit analysis without an adequate business case.
Transport Minister and Minister for the Hunter Gladys Berejiklian told the Mercury that every decision the government had made had been in the best interests of the Newcastle and Hunter region.
