Logan Mayor Luke Smith defends move to ask for letters of support for donor

LOGAN Mayor Luke Smith has defended his move to ask for information about the status of environmental breaches served on a Carbrook developer who donated to his election campaign.

LOGAN Mayor Luke Smith has defended his move to ask for information about the status of environmental breaches served on a Carbrook developer who donated to his election campaign.

Mayor Smith said he was entitled to make the request as he was the chairman of the Economic Development committee at the time. Picture: Annette Dew

Logan City Council issued Show Cause notices in 2014 to the company of Chinese-Australian developer Liansheng Yue, who planned to build a tourist resort on the Logan River at Carbrook.

The notices were for alleged felling of trees and dumping of soil and works done without development approval.

After no action, council officers were poised to send out enforcement notices in December 2015 but held off after the developer employed a planning consultant and to give the developer time to “regularise” the site.

Mayor Smith also defended his 2015 move to ask council to write letters of support for the Yue

family when it was applying for financing to build its $750 million Lakes resort.

His request for a letter of support was after Mr Yue made substantial donations to councillor Smith’s mayoral campaign.

However, the Yue family had already been granted preliminary approval by council in 2013 at the Logan River site.

Division 10 councillor Darren Power, whose electorate covers The Lakes site, said it was unusual for a councillor to request information about environmental breaches for projects outside their electorate division.

However, Mayor Smith said he was entitled to make the request as he was the chairman of the Economic Development committee at the time.

Cr Power also questioned Cr Smith’s request for the letter of support for the Yue project, saying

it was incongruous with what the mayor told this year’s Crime and Corruption Commission inquiry.

“At the inquiry he said he had told his donors he could not help them after receiving election donations,” Cr Power said.

“The request for this letter of support to a developer who gave $80,000 in donations to the mayoral candidate was made before council had ruled on its development application.

“While officers may have said it aligned with the planning scheme, no decision had been made on whether it would go ahead or not.

“When a development application is approved, the value of the land goes up and this would have advantaged the developer when applying for finance.

“I consider it to be inappropriate for a councillor to request such a letter at any stage for any developer let alone one who had contributed large sums to an election campaign.

“It is also unusual for a councillor to request information about environmental breaches in areas that are not part of their own division.”

In his defence, Mayor Smith said: “The claims (made by the ABC) relating to meetings, updates etc all relate to 2015 – one year before the new DA was lodged and two years before the new DA was considered by council of which I was not present,” he said.

“No conflict of interest existed for me in relation to the 2013 preliminary approval decision, and as previously advised, an independent audit through the LGAQ examined my involvement in the process and confirmed that I had no involvement whatsoever in the 2017 decision.”

Logan councillor Phil Pidgeon (Division 9) said he had never been lobbied to vote favourably for the Yue family or any of its developments by Luke Smith before or after he became mayor.

Logan council said it had not issued fines to the respondent, this would be a matter for Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.