IN WHAT has become the worst kept secret in town, it has been revealed that a submission believed to contain damaging details about favourable planning decisions handed to developer donors to the Shoalhaven Independents Group has been suppressed by State Parliament.

The first hint came from Shoalhaven Mayor Greg Watson during a tense interview with ABC Local Radio’s Sarah Dingle, in which he let slip the existence of a submission to the Legislative Council Select Committee on Electoral and Political Party Funding. That was broadcast on April 30.

Cr Watson was answering questions about the record-breaking contribution of developers to his 2004 Shoalhaven Independents Group (SIG) campaign fund, when he told Ms Dingle his political rivals had sent a submission to the parliamentary committee, headed by Fred Nile, as part of a campaign to discredit him.

Subsequent searches of the committee’s website found no evidence of such a submission.

Then on Thursday last week, Mr Nile confirmed the existence of the submission when he interrupted a speech by Greens MP Lee Rhiannon.

Ms Rhiannon was addressing the Legislative Council, and detailing what appeared to be an extremely favourable rezoning granted to WD Pty Ltd, a company owned by Michael Corban, who was the largest single donor to the SIG in the 2004 campaign.

(Mr Corban was also a donor to Planning Minister Frank Sartor’s campaign, giving $3000 via controversial Wollongong Labor Party figure Joe Scimone.)

In his bid to silence Ms Rhiannon, Mr Nile accused her of reading from an in-camera submission and of possibly being in contempt by doing so.

“Further to the point of order,” Mr Nile told the House, “it might clarify the situation if the member would acknowledge whether she was reading from the submission of Mr Corrigan, which was in-camera.”

Ms Rhiannon: “No, I am reading from my speech.”

Mr Nile: “A speech based on the submission from Mr Corrigan.”

While acknowledging the existence of a submission that clearly raised concerns about the conduct of Shoalhaven City Council in relation to political donors to the dominant party’s war chest, Mr Nile also blurted out the name of the author, Mark Corrigan, which was also in-camera.

Mr Corrigan came to prominence two weeks ago, when he addressed a public meeting in Nowra convened by the Shoalhaven Action Campaign.

Meanwhile, on Monday Mayor Watson, again on ABC Local Radio, accused Ms Rhiannon of abusing parliamentary privilege by raising the Corban matter.

He went on to say he was unable to defend himself against allegations raised in the parliament.

Yesterday, the mayor went a step further, putting a mayoral minute before the ordinary meeting of council.

In it, he defended the rezoning of the Corban property, saying that council resolved to rezone the land in 2002, two years before the decision was gazetted. He also said the process was run entirely by council staff and invited the President of the Legislative Council to call in the file relating to the rezoning.

And he called for an inquiry into whether parliamentary privilege had been breached, whether Parliament had been misled by Ms Rhiannon, and whether there had been an attempt to publish a document that had been suppressed by the Standing Committee of the Legislative Council.

The document? The submission the mayor alerted listeners to on April 30.