Paul Fletcher puts blame on official for $30m Western Sydney Airport land deal

Paul Fletcher, the minister responsible for the Western Sydney Airport when the federal government bought land for a hugely inflated price, has blamed a deputy secretary.

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher at the National Press Club Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Paul Fletcher, the minister responsible for the Western Sydney Airport when the federal government bought a small parcel of land for a hugely inflated price, has blamed a deputy secretary for signing off on the deal.

Mr Fletcher also refused to say if he would have blocked the acquisition if he had been fully briefed on the Department of Infrastructure’s “unethical” and “inadequate” valuation process.

Known as the Leppington Triangle, the 12.26ha of land was owned by billionaire businessmen and Liberal Party donors Tony and Ron Perich through their Leppington Pastoral Company and bought by the Department of Infrastructure in July 2018 for $29.8m.

Secured for the use of a possible second runway at the Western Sydney Airport, the land was valued at just $3.1m 11 months later.

Mr Fletcher, who is now Communications Minister, has come under increasing pressure over the acquisition after the Australian National Audit Office found it “fell short of ethical standards”, meant taxpayers paid “more than was proper” for the land and that the purchase price was four times higher than the next highest valuation.

“The Auditor-General’s report makes it very plain that officials within the department provided briefing material to a deputy secretary of the department who made the decision to proceed with the transaction. So it was made by a deputy secretary, not by a minister,” Mr Fletcher said at the National Press Club in Canberra.

“The information that went to the deputy secretary of the department from lower level officials in the department - the same information that was provided to the minister - was deficient, did not lay out properly the basis for the valuation and contained an expression of opinion by departmental officials that the price being paid was reasonable.”

Mr Fletcher conceded he was briefed on the deal but said the department failed to relay all the facts about the transaction, as detailed in the Auditor-General’s report, to him.

“Would it certainly have raised further questions? I’m sure it would have done,” he said.

A Department of Infrastructure spokesman said there was no allegation in the ANAO report of wrongdoing by the deputy secretary overseeing the land acquisition.

The department is conducting an independent review of the transaction and has also launched an investigation of staff conduct after possible conflicts of interest and probity issues were identified.