Execs grilled over Rosehill mini city project

Senior bureaucrats have denied the evaluation process to raze Sydney’s Rosehill racecourse to build a new metro station and 25,000 home mini city was anything out of the ordinary after questions over the speed of progress were raised.

The major redevelopment between the Australian Turf Club (ATC) and the NSW government is in the second stage of the unsolicited proposal (USP) process however faces opposition from members.

During an inquiry into the proposal, department chiefs were grilled over the fast turnaround of the proposed project, which was officially announced to major fanfare in December least year.

The ATC then officially submitted their USP on March 28 this year.

Following a meeting between NSW Premier Chris Minns and the ATC’s head of corporate affairs and government relations Steve McMahon, who is Mr Minn’s friend and Labor ally, on October 30, 2023, departments took four days to progress the idea to a four-option strategy on November 6.

The options included a direct sale between the government and the ATC, a joint venture, a compulsory acquisition and a USP.

Independent MP Mark Latham questioned whether there were issues with the “speed with which the cabinet office was moving on, doing it too fast and maybe some corners were being cut?”

The Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade director of commercial transactions Rowan Fisher disagreed.

“The USP process, as we’ve described before is, is a very robust and structured process for government examining proposals from the private sector,” he said.

The DEIT executive director of commercial transactions Katie Knight said the USP process was robust.

Both Mr Fisher and Ms Knight confirmed they had not received any communication from the Premier’s office in the time between Mr Minns and Mr McMahon meeting and the first meeting between the department and the ATC on November 8 on USP guidelines.

Ms Knight also backed an unsolicited proposal process for its “really robust guidelines”.

“It has a very staged approach. It has a rigorous assessment and decision making, separating criteria, so I recommended it as the appropriate path,” she said.

In an earlier session on Thursday, Premier’s Department secretary Simon Draper said the ATC would have been aware that the government was pursuing locations for other metro stations and extra housing when they first flagged the proposal.

“I don’t think there’s any great conspiracy or surprise about that. It was a well publicised, worst kept secret,” he told the committee.

“The government was trying to find additional station locations and build housing around those stations.”

Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan said the Metro West line’s proposed 2032 opening was not dependent on the success of the Rosehill proposal.

As it stands, tunnelling has yet to reach Rosehill and only design costs have been invested in the project, with Sydney Metro bosses “hoping” to provide advice to government in the “coming months”.

Should Rosehill’s USP be approved, the project still needs the backing of ATC members.

Mr Minns has described it as an “once-in-a-generation” opportunity; however, he acknowledged the decision was in ATC members’ hands.

“We’ve really made it clear from the very beginning that this is a decision for ATC members. We don’t own the land, the land’s owned by the members of the racecourse, and there’s no compulsory acquisition,” he previously said.

“But we’d be crazy just to walk away from a proposal that could see more housing for young people on a brand new public transport line for Sydney.”

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