The Baird government today released its Russell Review into compulsory property acquisitions over 1,000 days since they received it.

It offers 20 clear recommendations showing how the process could be made fairer, all of which had been ignored while homes were acquired for Westconnex and other infrastructure projects.

A letter from the Finance Minister to the Premier leaked earlier this year, showing that the process was unfair but that it would be too expensive and inconvenient to do anything to fix it.

Residents were routinely ripped off hundreds of thousands of dollars in unfair acquisitions for Westconnex. The Government is set to spend over $3 billion in acquisitions for its infrastructure projects.

Quotes attributable to the Member for Summer Hill

“The Report shows the process is unfair and it’s appalling that the Finance Minister and the Premier knew that and did nothing for 1,000 days.

“The way this Government has handled this shows that they don’t care about people, about fairness, or about being transparent.

“It’s good that residents will be further compensated for what they’ve lost.

“It’s good that action is being taken to make sure no-one goes through this again, but the Government needs to take responsibility for the pain they’ve caused.

“If they’d acted on the recommendations of the report when they first received it, the Government would have saved a lot of people a lot of pain and anguish.

“The Premier will keep apologising, but we need to know why he made the mistake in the first place.

“This sorry saga shows a fundamental lack of judgment and a lack of basic human compassion.”