NSW Election 2019: Cafe tender question about Daley’s council days
Michael Daley questioned over decision made while he was on Randwick Council, the AMA takes aim at opposition health spokesman Walt Secord, and Gladys Berejiklian keeps campaigning in the family, taking outspoken sister Mary along for the ride.
NSW
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Michael Daley voted as part of a Labor bloc to award a lease for the beachside Maroubra Beach Pavilion cafe to the company of a woman who had been an ALP branch member — even though it offered $500,000 less rent than the highest bidder.
It’s the latest revelation in a string of alleged incidents from Mr Daley’s time as a councillor at Randwick City Council.
The council awarded the lease for the prime spot in 2005 after Labor councillors voted in a bloc in favour of ALP branch member Shirley Struk’s tender.
Greens and Liberals councillors opposed.
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Ms Struk was first recorded as a member of the Maroubra branch of the ALP in 2001, but she says that by 2005 she was herself running as an independent council candidate, and added that she was not shown any favouritism in the tender process.
Another cafe owner had made a bid for $796,370 for the lease, but lost out to Ms Struk, who had already been operating the cafe at the spot since 2000.
Mr Daley was a Maroubra ALP branch member at the time and no other Labor councillors made conflicts of interest declarations.
The 2004 Council Code of Conduct required councillors to disclose non-pecuniary conflicts of interest.
Local newspapers at the time reported Ms Struk had said the other rental bid was “unrealistic” and would have required the cafe to serve an “unattainable” 300 customers a day.
“The rent offered was not sustainable,” she told the local paper.
Yesterday she said: “From memory I was not even a member of the ALP when we went to tender in 2000.
“I had not met any of the councillors prior to putting in a tender.
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“The second time we tendered Mr Daley was not a councillor. I actually ran as an independent in the Council elections.
“No way were we shown any favouritism by the Labor Party or any other political party.
‘‘It was the council admin that went through all tenders and put their recommendation forward to the council.”
Randwick Council minutes from November 22, 2005 record Mr Daley voting in favour of granting the lease to Ms Struk’s company.
Confidential tender documents for the lease were released in 2006 after Liberal Party mayor Ted Seng moved to have the confidential tender documents released, even as the Labor councillors tried to keep the documents secret.
Mr Daley has been approached for comment.
MARY’S SISTER PACT
Gladys Berejiklian’s younger sister Mary joined the Premier’s campaign bus yesterday, just two weeks after making front-page headlines for telling social media trolls to “grow some pubes”.
Corporate executive Mary made the remark while hitting back at derogatory comments made about her big sister on Instagram. Mary joined the Premier as she began the day inspecting a tunnel-boring machine at the Sydney Metro Barangaroo site.
She travelled with the Premier as her election bus made stops at a steel manufacturer at St Marys, Penrith Public School, restaurant El Jannah and Blacktown Hospital.
“It’s been amazing (travelling with my sister), and it’s been very eye opening because I obviously look up to her and am very inspired by what she does but had no idea exactly what that looks like,” Mary said.
“This has given me a real insight.”
Mary will be at a polling booth tomorrow.
“I’ll be at a booth somewhere, 100 per cent I’ll be there, all guns out, sleeves rolled up,” she said.
FIRM’S LICENCE TO PRINT OUR MONEY
Despite at least 10 printing firms located in the Maroubra electorate, ALP Leader Michael Daley uses his taxpayer-funded allowance to give printing jobs to a prominent Labor donor situated in southwestern Revesby.
Mr Daley, who has been outspoken against government contracts being awarded interstate or overseas, receives a “communications allowance” of about $100,000 a year to print newsletters and posters for the public.
Since 2013, Mr Daley has given numerous jobs to Jeffries Printing, which has donated thousands of dollars to the ALP, including $4940 to Country Labor in 2016 and $5900 to Country Labor in 2017. All brochures printed by politicians must carry the imprint of the printer. Jeffries Printing is popular with the Labor Party headquarters as well, receiving more than $1.4 million in printing commissions between 2011 and 2016. One local printer at Maroubra said: “It would have been nice to get some jobs from him. We’ve never heard from him.”
SANTOS GAS BID CHECKS ‘ROBUST’
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has defended the long approvals process for the Santos Narrabri Gas Project, which is still waiting for the green light 17 years after gas was discovered.
The oil and gas company lodged its preliminary environmental assessment in March 2014 and is now waiting for final Independent Planning Commission approval.
Ms Berejiklian said the state government was taking its time to ensure a thorough assessment of the project.
It comes after Labor backed its blanket ban on the project, with energy and resources spokesman Adam Searle saying it was believed some of the gas would be piped to Queensland rather than benefit NSW.
Labor leader Michael Daley in February said he would block the project if elected.
Santos has said the project would be able to supply up to half of NSW’s gas needs and should help drive down gas prices. Australian industry has been crying out for cheaper gas, with spot prices increasing fourfold since 2016 forcing some businesses to shut down and others to lay off workers.
Ms Berejiklian yesterday said the project was still under review. “I don’t think the public begrudge us for being robust,” she said. “We need to consider a number of factors … it has to go through all the required environmental process and planning processes.”
LABOR IN NEED OF MEDICAL HELP AS DOCTORS TURN ON SECORD
The peak medical body in NSW has taken the extraordinary step of lashing out at Labor’s aspiring health minister, saying it is “concerned” about the prospect of working with him.
Australian Medical Association NSW president Dr Kean-Seng Lim warned medicos are worried about Walt Secord becoming health minister if Labor wins the state election.
Dr Lim said AMA NSW members were concerned about forming a “trustful relationship” with Mr Secord.
“It’s fair to say that members … have grave concerns over being able to work with the shadow minister given his previous pattern of behaviour and statements about doctors,” he said.
The AMA usually maintains an apolitical stance. But the organisation’s issues with Mr Secord stem from past incidents where he named a young boy who died after leaving Hornsby Hospital and comments he made about the mistaken fatal gassing of a baby at Bankstown Hospital.
“Those statements did cause a lot of distress … and that is a feeling I think that continues to be felt to this day,” Dr Lim said.
Former president of AMA NSW Dr Brad Frankum backed the organisation’s view of Mr Secord, saying he hadn’t “seen much evidence” of him having “a strong and productive working relationship with doctors”.
Mr Secord told The Daily Telegraph he stood for “patient care and with health and hospital workers” and “sometimes that may be uncomfortable for the AMA NSW leadership”.
“I am confident that we will have a constructive working relationship with the AMA and its members — and my door will always be open,” he said.
MIGRANTS ‘PART OF THE COMMUNITY’
Chinese-born Australian Vanessa Xing is appalled by Labor leader Michael Daley’s comments about Asian migrants taking jobs from young Australians.
Ms Xing moved to Australia in 1998 and completed a Masters of Commerce at Sydney University. She became a citizen in 2003 and has worked as a business consultant in Sydney for 21 years.
Currently a partner at Think Global Consulting, she describes her work as “acting as the bridge” between Australian and Chinese companies.
The 45-year-old said Mr Daley’s comments were not appropriate for a man who wants to be NSW premier.
“NSW has the highest percentage of Chinese immigrants in Australia and they love living here,” she told The Daily Telegraph
“If Mr Daley visited the Chinese communities, he would see the amazing, intelligent young people who were educated here, they have their families here, they go to school here.
“They are part of the community, they are Aussies.”
Mr Daley later apologised for his remarks after they were revealed by The Daily Telegraph.
“The comments were only made by one person, it does not represent the whole party and I’m glad he apologised,” Ms Xing said.
“But it is not a good look with the election so soon.”
Originally published as NSW Election 2019: Cafe tender question about Daley’s council days
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