Former NSW premier Mike Baird claims he pushed back on Crown-Lendlease over Barangaroo deal

Former NSW premier Mike Baird claims he frustrated repeated attempts by developers to secure views at the Sydney harbourside precinct.

Mike Baird at Barangaroo inquiry on Friday.

The NSW government handed Crown and Lendlease property perks and extra land in Sydney’s Barangaroo worth as much as $300m after surrendering on a deal personally negotiated and signed off by former premier Mike Baird, an inquiry has heard.

Appearing on Friday before the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the Barangaroo Sight Lines, Mr Baird said he had sought to avoid conflict with Crown-Lendlease when he intervened in the attempt by the developers to cement rights to control views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in 2015.

The former premier said he so frustrated Crown and Lendlease over the consortium’s bids to lock in views for their buildings that he was “not on their Christmas card list”.

The NSW parliament is seeking to examine decision-making around the redevelopment of the Barangaroo precinct and the repeated failure to break ground on the building of Central Barangaroo.

The inquiry heard Mr Baird met former Crown boss James Packer in 2015 to discuss sight lines in Barangaroo as well as a series of delays which had hit the massive hotel-casino resort.

Mr Baird said he hoped the deal he’d agreed to would protect the state from any legal claim and Crown and Lendlease would not oppose the redevelopment of Central Barangaroo or the Metro proposed for the area.

However, Crown and Lendlease later took legal action against NSW claiming the state sold sight lines in Barangaroo twice, first to it and later when it announced plans to develop Central Barangaroo.

Grocon purchased the rights to build on Central Barangaroo in a $420m deal in 2016.

The inquiry heard as part of the previously secret peace deal Crown and Lendlease were handed an additional 8000 square metres of development rights worth as much as $300m to get them to agree to drop their case against NSW.

Daniel Grollo at Barangaroo inquiry today

The inquiry also heard a former senior NSW public servant chose not to hand Grocon approvals for Central Barangaroo so as not to “complicate” the company‘s attempt to extract itself from the project after repeatedly failing to receive a ruling on what it could build in the area.

Appearing on Friday before the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the Barangaroo Sight Lines former Infrastructure NSW executive director strategy and operations Tim Robertson said the government had no obligation to provide any permissions over developments in the precinct despite agreeing to sell the right to develop Central Barangaroo.

Mr Robertson said the NSW government agency was content to watch Grocon’s sale of its stake in Central Barangaroo to Aqualand go through without any changes which might arise if it were to issue sight lines rulings.

“Why would you issue a notice when they were in the middle of a transaction? I don’t know how that serves the public interests slightly,” Mr Robertson said.

However, committee chair Mark Latham said INSW’s failure to act amounted to an “attempt to meddle in the commercial aspects of the project” and engineer a financial outcome “favourable to Aqualand”, which bought Grocon’s stake.

Grocon CEO Daniel Grollo claimed the move by the NSW state government to withhold public rulings around the size of his company’s project in Central Barangaroo tipped it into administration.

“The principal trigger was not receiving the (sight lines) notice and having to sell short our development rights,” Mr Grollo said.

Mr Grollo claimed Grocon got “lots of promises” from the former Barangaroo Delivery Authority, which signed multiple deals with his company promising to deliver a plan for Central Barangaroo.

Mr Grollo said Former NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Tim Reardon assured Grocon would get its sight lines notice by July 2018.

“I signed a $150m contract with an international organisation to come into the consortium and the government never delivered the sight lines,” Mr Grollo said.

However, Mr Reardon rejected any claims he’d given Mr Grollo assurances around the sight lines in Barangaroo.

“I cannot make any such promises,” he said.

Originally published as Former NSW premier Mike Baird claims he pushed back on Crown-Lendlease over Barangaroo deal