Council supports call for inquiry into Barangaroo

Even as the bulldozers moved into Barangaroo to begin demolition of the Cruise Passenger Terminal, Leichhardt councillors continued to lambast the decision to shift its location to White Bay at the August ordinary council meeting. Council overwhelmingly supported a motion stemming from the Friends of Barangaroo rally on August 3, which asked the NSW Liberal Party to initiate an Upper House inquiry into the development.

The motion passed as the State Government released its contract with developer Lend Lease under FOI laws, but with almost all financial information pertinent to the $6 billion deal removed – at Lend Lease’s request.

However, opposition to the motion came from the two Labor councillors, Darcy Byrne and Lyndal Howison.

“I don’t actually have a firm position on the redevelopment of Barangaroo – the reason is that I’m a councillor on Leichhardt Council, and what I don’t want to see is this Council getting caught up in issues that are not our responsibility,” Cr Byrne said.

“The reason I believe it’s come up at Council on a monthly basis is because there are a number of councillors running campaigns for State Parliament at the moment. I think residents would much rather us focus on local issues. Opposition to Barangaroo may be legitimate, but it has nothing to do with us.”

But Mayor Jamie Parker argued Council was required to respond to various issues raised by Barangaroo, “as a bordering council where our residents are affected… and because the issues are important.”

He also suggested the Barangaroo development was directly relevant to the decision to move the Cruise Passenger Terminal to White Bay. “The Terminal requires a 50-metre exclusion zone surrounding it for customs purposes – that’s land the developers can’t build on, and therefore can’t make money on,” he said.

Cr Howison told councillors she would vote against the motion because it contained “a clear implication that the development process has broken down, when I don’t think there is evidence it has.”

Cr John Stamolis, who said the Barangaroo development was an “absolute disaster” which would “wreck the foreshore at Barangaroo and at White Bay”, described the community meeting on August 3 as extremely important. “It brought all the community groups together, it brought the councils [opposing] together, and I also think it exposed the planning process,” he said. “[Chairman of the Barangaroo Delivery Authority] Mike Collins was defending things that were already said, already done – but he could not explain the process, or the benefits of the project, to us.”