Orange Grove affair

The Orange Grove affair was a political scandal in Australia concerning the dealings of the New South Wales state Australian Labor Party government with multinational corporation The Westfield Group.

The State Government declined to intervene, despite a planning report suggesting that course of action, and the retail component of the Orange Grove centre was forced to close.

[5] Mr Mosca submitted a Statement of Environmental Effects in July, which argued that "warehouse clearance outlets" were not specifically prohibited by the LEP, and therefore Council could consent to them.

Immediately following the end of the comment period on 15 December, an officer of Liverpool City Council approved the development application, apparently satisfied that "warehouse clearance outlets" were not forbidden by the LEP.

[7] Prior to the approval, the Orange Centre commenced trading in November, with Craig Knowles, the local member and state Planning Minister, attending the official opening.

[8] While the dispute had been ongoing, the Carr government had sacked the strife-torn Liverpool council, after a series of incidents of economic mismanagement,[9] and on 16 March, it appointed Gabrielle Kibble, the daughter of former Governor-General John Kerr, as administrator.

[8] On 15 April 2004, Mark Ryan, Director of Corporate Affairs, Westfield, phoned Premier Carr's Chief of Staff, Graeme Wedderburn and suggested that the original Liverpool Council planning decision for the centre had been approved corruptly.

[14] On 10 July 2004, Gazal, Orange Grove's owner, signed a statutory declaration alleging that he had been told by Labor member Joe Tripodi on 22 May that the retrospective approval would be denied by Beamer.

Gazal's solicitor, Joseph D’Agostino, also signed a statutory declaration containing an allegation that Tripodi had indicated that the planning issue was being handled "at a higher level then (sic) himself."

Mosca, the shopping centre's architect signed a statutory declaration alleging that Tripodi had said, in relation to the rezoning, "Carr rang Beamer and asked her to screw it over".

It subsequently emerged that the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources submission to Minister Beamer had supported the rezoning of the centre, due to the number of jobs that would be lost if it were to close.

[16] It also emerged that Mark Ryan, a senior Westfield lobbyist, had telephoned Graeme Wedderburn, the Premier's chief of staff, on 15 April 2003, two days after Kibble had publicly supported the rezoning.

[18] In relation to Tripodi, ICAC suggested that Tripodi might have been "content to be enlisted as the Gazcorp troubleshooter to perform a task which, in his opinion, was not difficult at all but which would raise his standing in the eyes of those who enlisted him", but when he lost confidence that Beamer would approve the proposed amendment of the LEP, he attempted on 22 May "to distance himself from this unfortunate result by ascribing to higher powers or to those with influence beyond his control the true cause of the likely rejection of the LEP amendment".