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Former NSW premier Nathan Rees, who banned developer donations in his state five years ago, has slammed the ACT government accepting money close to approvals processes as "sick and wrong". But ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said transparency has been a hallmark of her administration and she would not be lectured by politicians from the "most corrupt" state parliament. It comes one week after a Sunday Canberra Times investigation exposed more than $220,000 of developer donations given to the ACT Labor party, often during or close to approvals processes or while the government was working in partnership with the donor. Mr Rees banned all developer donations in NSW from 2009, in the wake of a number of scandals around developers giving cash for favours across the state's political system. Five years on from his historic decision, Mr Rees said he was proud to be ahead of the curve and called for the ACT government to follow in his footsteps. "It's a train coming down the tunnel for governments in Australia and you're better getting ahead of it because it says to people in the community that the process is squeaky clean," he said. Mr Rees was critical of the ACT government's decision to take money from donors close to or during approvals processes, saying it was corrosive of public trust. "It's sick and wrong. The punters smell it a mile off. [They say] 'The donors are giving in the expectation of what ... ?' ... You're talking about decisions that confer sometimes, in the ACT, millions of dollars of benefit on people. It's just wrong," he said. Mr Rees said every jurisdiction in Australia should ban developer donations and encouraged governments to move to a public funding system to eliminate donations altogether. "[A] standard voter in a standard electorate doesn't understand why people might have donated their hard-earned folding stuff to a political party. They think if you're not an individual doing it for a political party or cause, then there must be an expectation that comes with it," he said. National developer group Urban Taskforce chief executive officer Chris Johnson said developers should avoid donating to government, calling the situation in NSW a "red light" for the rest of the country. "It's just wiser for all parties to not allow even the potential for that connection to be made so we have suggested that developers do not get involved in donating to political parties around the country," he said. But Ms Gallagher said a large part of her administration had been ensuring ACT politics was clean and transparent, including recent extensive inquiries into ACT electoral laws. She said although Mr Rees was a good, clean politician, he was in no position to lecture her government. "Taking a lesson from politicians who've had the most corrupt behaviour of any state parliament in the country is pretty rich, when we have managed to keep politics clean and transparent in Canberra," she said. Ms Gallagher said the procurement and planning processes in Canberra were independent and at arm's length from ministers, removing all possibility of interference by government. "A development application does not sit on my desk and I can tell you in the 13 years of being in the assembly I have not once rung the planning authority and spoken to them about an application, other than an application the government's got in," she said. Ms Gallagher said she saw no reason to ban developer donations in the ACT although she said she was always prepared to discuss other forms of electoral reform. She said the ACT already had rolling donations disclosure and caps on electoral funding and expenditure. "I can't see any reason why you would pursue one group and not look at the overall issue of everybody if you're going to go down that path and the logical conclusion to that is that you only allow natural persons to donate," she said. Mr Rees's developer donation ban was taken to the High Court by property developer Jeff McCloy in July, but the former premier said if his ban was struck down by the court, the federal government should legislate to ensure it is able to stand. "Although I'm a Labor man and fundamentally so, the system doesn't belong to Labor or Liberal. It belongs to the people and they're entitled to have confidence in it," he said. Do you know more? Contact the Canberra Times at ben.westcott@fairfaxmedia.com.au.

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