iscover
The federal government paid a dairy farm operator 22 times more per hectare for land next to Western Sydney Airport than its state counterpart NSW did.
The Commonwealth bought the 12.26 hectares at Bringelly off Leppington Pastoral Company for almost $30 million in July 2018, which was eventually planned to be used for the airport’s second runway.
However, less than a year later, the federal Department of Infrastructure’s accounts showed it actually valued the land at $3.065 million, or a tenth of the price.
Federal Auditor-General Grant Hehir said the department didn’t exercise proper due diligence on its purchase, adding that the agency’s operations “fell short” of ethical standards.
It subsequently transpired NSW had paid 22 times less per hectare for a 1.36-hectare slice of the so-called ‘Leppington triangle’. The purchase was needed for a realignment of a road, which was a key link between Narellan and the M4 motorway.
Earlier this month, Western Sydney Airport confirmed construction of its new passenger terminal will begin at the end of next year, with the winning contractor picked in mid-2021.
The business also confirmed the project is still on course to welcome up to 10 million passengers in 2026.
It’s hoped more than 80 million people will travel through each year in the 2060s.
The news comes three months after the airport confirmed that construction of a new rail link to St Marys station would begin soon, and a $2.6 billion industrial precinct will open next year.
Since initial earthworks marked the start of work to build Western Sydney International in September 2018, around 1 million worker hours have been racked up on the project and 1.8 million cubic metres of earth moved around the site.
Guglielmo
says:It seems that the NSW gov bought sections of farmland at the going rate, but the Fed’s bought a “diary farm” and surely diary farms come at a premium as there aren’t many of those in the whole country.
Matt Hoffman
says:Is that where diaries grow before they go to newsagents?