To Catch a Thief !

The news that the man many thought should have been our next Police Commissioner is to conduct an enquiry into the New South Wales state planning system will be greeted as good news.  Nick Kaldos has been handed a broad brief by Planning Minister Anthony Roberts and this is the outcome of many scandals that have rocked the community.

Nick Kaldos has an impeccable resume.. He was a deputy police commissioner until jockeying within for the top job resulted in the entire upper command being overlooked.  He left the police and served  as the Director of Internal Oversight at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the Middle East. He will now enquire whether interstate or overseas integrity systems have a role to play if they are incorporated in state planning.

This will be an opportunity to finally break the nexus between the people who serve on councils and make the decisions, and the developers who are also seated at that table and push their own interests. One policy - championed by Mr Roberts - seeks to strip councils of the ability to decide on development applications.  That function has been vested in mandatory local planning panels which enforce whatever planning controls are in place in that council area.

Councillors sometimes vote to approve developments that go against their own planning laws.  Issues such as building heights and floor plan changes can deliver incredible profits to developers and instances have been uncovered where multiple planning decisions not only lack merit but constitute open graft.

Nick Kaldos' appointment is the latest in a number of anti corruption measures adopted by the state government. There is the expectation that he will do his job swiftly because he is due to report back by this November, and then his recommendations will need to be actively proclaimed as law by the state parliament.

The fact that Mr Kaldos is such a respected figure will make it hard for the politicians to ignore or water down the anti graft solutions he proposes.  Our parliamentarians have also had a swipe of the corruption tar brush and one was recently forced to resign when he was caught seeking a commission for his part in aiding a development deal.  We have a state election early next year and both sides of parliament will be keen to present themselves as squeaky clean.

Councils playing ducks and drakes with the planning laws have been a constant irritant for many years.  The outcome has been buyer dissatisfaction with the outcome in instances where the purchase has been " off the plan ".  Often the finished apartment has little resonance with the image promoted when the building was in the planning stage and may even have view in the opposite direction, be placed on a lower or higher floor and have a totally different layout.

Housing is now the biggest economic decision most people will make in their lifetime.  It is said that it takes a cop to catch a thief - and Nick Kaldos was a very impressive cop during his time with the NSW police.   The shonky people manipulating planning in this state have every reason to be very nervous !