By Cara Waters, Adam Carey and Sarah Danckert
Lord Mayor Nick Reece accepted tens of thousands of dollars from donors with property interests in the City of Melbourne, including some with pending developments, despite promising he would not allow property developers to bankroll his mayoral campaign.
Reece raised $950,484 for his campaign – three times the amount of his predecessor, Sally Capp, for her final campaign – from a who’s who of Melbourne, including wealthy business people, trade unions and developers.
Reece said his donors included “property owners, not developers” and told The Age he asked donors to sign a declaration to that effect.
Donors included theatre operator the Marriner Group, which donated $25,000 and has a development proposal on foot for a 23-level tower above the heritage-listed Comedy Theatre. Reece said: “My understanding is that development is not proceeding.”
The donation by the Marriner Group, which was made on August 30, raises other issues as it means Reece, Roshena Campbell, Kevin Louey and Mark Scott, who were all candidates on “Team Nick”, must recuse themselves from any decisions involving the theatre company.
One week after receiving the donation, Reece pledged to sell the City of Melbourne’s share of the Regent Theatre if elected. He made the pledge despite being precluded from voting on the issue after accepting the Marriner Group’s money. Marriner, which owns the Comedy Theatre, Princess Theatre and Forum Theatre, and operates the Regent, would be a likely potential buyer should the Regent be put up for sale.
The Age was unable to contact Jason Marriner, chief executive of the Marriner Group, and a request for comment was sent to the group late on Thursday.
Other Reece donors from the property sector included RBA board member Carol Schwartz and Alan Schwartz, who donated $10,000 and $15,000 respectively.
The couple have a long history in the property sector as developers and as mezzanine lenders to property groups, including their Trawalla investment and property development business.
According to its website, Trawalla Property Group has previously developed two projects in the City of Melbourne, an office development in North Melbourne and a Flinders Lane property.
Carol Schwartz said these were not developments but minor changes to suit their requirements and those of their tenants.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Nick Reece secured almost $1 million in donations.Credit: Justin McManus.
Carol Schwartz is a former director of the Property Council of Australia (1995 to 2001) and a former director of property development company Stockland (2010 to 2019).
Harry Stamoulis donated $2100. He owns or controls three buildings at the top of the Melbourne CBD, all of which he acquired in the past 10 years.
None of these buildings have active development plans, but all could be subject to future refurbishments, particularly the rundown Coates Building at 20 Collins Street.
In August, Reece told a council meeting voting on a motion on improving transparency in democracy through donation disclosures that he would not take donations from property developers in the City of Melbourne.
“I have declared myself a candidate in the upcoming election, a candidate for lord mayor,” he said. “One of the first things I did, in fact, on the day I did that, I have declared that I will not accept donations from property developers in the City of Melbourne.”
However, Reece said on Thursday the donors to his campaign were not developers.
“They are property owners, not developers,” he said. “We had a self-imposed rule of not receiving donations from property developers in the City of Melbourne. We asked donors to sign a declaration that they met this criteria as part of our donation process.”
Carol Schwartz said she donated to Reece because he had a great vision for Melbourne and followed through.
“I haven’t been a property developer since I left the Stockland board,” she said. “I don’t consider myself a property developer.”
The Age is not suggesting that donation laws were not followed or that any of the donors to Reece’s campaign acted improperly.
SIG Group, which on its website describes itself as “an Australian-based property development investment group specialising in world-class residential, commercial and retail projects”, donated $20,000 to Reece’s campaign.
Reece said SIG was not a developer in the City of Melbourne.
Reece’s donor list was topped by two unions: the ETU, which donated $60,000, and the PPTEU, which donated $40,000.
Reece, Campbell, Louey and Scott all had to recuse themselves from the first council meeting last week because it involved a proposed development of the ETU’s headquarters. Team Nick councillors voted to support a planning scheme amendment rezoning the land surrounding the ETU’s office on March 19 this year. The amendment rezones the land and allows for a larger development envelope than is currently allowed. The councillors left the chamber on December 3, when the matter came back for consideration.
Dr Colleen Lewis, of integrity group the Accountability Round Table, said it came down to trust.
“Can we not trust the word of those we elect when they declare in a meeting that they definitely will not accept any funding from property developers in their election campaign, and we now find out that they have,” she said. “How much trust can people have in the newly elected lord mayor?”
Lewis said accepting the donation from the Marriner Group and then pledging to sell the Regent called into question the ethical standards of the lord mayor.
“We’re now getting a series of issues which call into question the ethical lens by which he is making his statements and making his decisions,” she said. “If we can’t get trust back in a way, where are we going? Where are we heading? We’re heading for Trump land because that’s what happened over there, a lack of trust.”
Nick Reece being sworn in as the 105th lord mayor of Melbourne in November.Credit: Justin McManus
Reece did not respond to questions regarding the Marriner donation and the mooted sale of the Regent.
Other heavy-hitting donors to Reece include trucking magnate Lindsay Fox, who donated $15,000; private investment specialist and Linfox director Peter Yates, who donated $10,000; Sussan owner Naomi Milgrom, who donated $2000; and businessman and philanthropist Sid Myer, who donated $5000.
BGH Capital co-founders Robin Bishop and Ben Gray each put in $20,000, commercial real estate agent Allard Shelton gave Reece $15,000, and investor Joshua Liberman donated $10,000.
Former Labor MP David Feeney put in $1000 and Spring Street Advisory, lobbyist for a range of major companies across all sectors including property giants Charter Hall and Investa Property Group, put in $20,000.
From the legal fraternity, Maurice Blackburn, Slater & Gordon, Arnold Bloch Leibler, Elit Lawyers, Philip Solomon, KC, Paul Hayes, KC, Leon Zwier and Justin Quill all donated to Reece.
Reece personally put $62,000 towards his campaign.
Greens councillor Olivia Ball said the amount of cash involved in the election was obscene.
“I fear this term of council will be mired in conflicts of interest,” she said. “The state government had an opportunity to act on IBAC’s recommendations and prohibit developer donations before the election and failed to do so. It must do so now. The 2024 election simply has to be the last held under this absurdly anti-democratic system.”
The list of donors was available to inspect only by in-person appointment on Thursday at the Town Hall, and no photographs or copies could be taken of the list.
The amount raised by Reece is more than double the $449,000 raised by former AFL footballer Anthony Koutoufides in his bid to be lord mayor, and it dwarfs the $316,000 Capp raised for her 2020 election.
The Age is unaware of any past City of Melbourne mayoral candidate who has attracted more donations to their campaign.
Under municipal laws, candidates are only required to disclose donations 40 days after the election, and Thursday was the first day the City of Melbourne made these results available.
They will not be available online until next week.
Greens candidate Roxane Ingleton and independent Jamal Hakim provided details of donations during the campaign; Reece declined to do so.
Ingleton disclosed donations totalling $31,053 to her campaign. Hakim disclosed $72,876 in donations, including $10,000 from theatre operator Jason Marriner, $10,000 from John Karkar, KC, and a $13,000 contribution that he made personally.
Arron Wood received $582,568 in total donations for his failed tilt at lord mayor.
His biggest donor was bikini entrepreneur Erin Deering, who ran as deputy mayoral candidate alongside him and put in $152,000.
Wood received $2000 from clothes designer Nadia Bartel and donated $70,000 to his own campaign.
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correction
This article was amended to reflect that Carol Schwartz is a current board member of the RBA, not former.