From leader to lobbyist: How Morris Iemma opens doors for Sydney property developers

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But documents obtained by the Herald reveal the former premier has also regularly petitioned Minns and Planning Minister Paul Scully’s offices directly on behalf of a large stable of developers, including Deicorp, Leamac and Kerry Stokes’ Seven Group Holdings.

Contained in the documents is a calendar entry for a “regular catch-up” between Iemma and Nick Wood, a senior policy adviser to Minns who, in April this year, took on responsibility for planning.

Morris Iemma arrives at St George Leagues Club after his 2007 election victory.

The entry, from August, notes the meeting as occurring “monthly”, though in a statement, a spokesman for Minns said Wood had only had one meeting with Iemma and had “no ongoing or planned meetings with him”. Iemma also said he had “no regular catch-ups” with Wood, and could only recall having one meeting with him.

In a statement to the Herald, Iemma, who is overseas, said: “I carry out my duties in accordance with the code enshrined in legislation governing consultants [and] third-party lobbyists”.

“This includes requisite disclosures, probity and ethics assessments,” he said.

Iemma played down the volume of his correspondence with both Minns and Scully, saying the bulk was “purely administrative chase ups”.

“If you consider substantive correspondence … there would be 20 odd in about two-and-a-half years,” he said of his representations to Scully’s office. “With Minns it’s even less. There’d be a dozen or so.”

Nonetheless, the documents show that in May this year, Iemma lobbied the Minns adviser Wood, on behalf of billionaire Robert Ell’s property development company, Leda Holdings.

The developer’s proposed greenfield subdivision in Menangle, Rosalind Park, had been stalled, he said, “for reasons that are not immediately clear to the landowner”. The proposed redevelopment, for some 1450 new homes on 264 hectares in south-west Sydney, had been stalled for two years.

The developer was seeking “clarification” over an industry rumour that the government had “placed a temporary pause on greenfield housing … in the greater Macarthur region”, Iemma wrote.

The documents show Wood acted quickly, forwarding Iemma’s message to an executive in the Planning Department about two hours later, seeking “assistance in getting to the bottom of this”.

About two weeks later, on June 6, Iemma wrote to the most senior public servant in NSW, secretary to the Premier’s Department Simon Draper, requesting advice on the same development. Hours later, Draper wrote to the secretary of the Planning Department, Kiersten Fishburn, requesting she “assist us with a substantive response”.

The documents show Iemma continued to seek updates until Wood wrote to him on June 12 to say he “should be able to come back to you soon with an update”.

“Thank you,” Iemma replied. “Amazing.”

On July 14, Wood sent Iemma’s original correspondence to senior staffers in Scully’s office, including his chief of staff, Paul Levins, and his deputy, Gino Mandarino.

Four days later, another senior planning official told Scully’s office “in relation to your question as to whether [the rezoning] could potentially progress”, there was “potential” that Leda’s Menangle rezoning could go ahead subject to a dwelling cap based on wastewater and transport restraints.

In August, three months after Iemma raised the issue, the same department official issued a gateway determination allowing the rezoning to progress to the next stage of assessment.

The Herald does not suggest the government or Iemma acted improperly over the Leda rezoning, or that his lobbying directly led to the gateway determination. Rather, it provides an example of questions that Iemma’s role as a lobbyist and an influential Labor figure raises, and the access he has enjoyed to the highest levels of the Minns government.

As Iemma complained in his correspondence to the government, the rezoning had been waved through by Campbelltown City Council, and Sydney Water had advised that it could service a capped number of dwellings.

But there are concerns over the development. In 2023, the Sydney Basin Koala Network warned that the proposal would have an impact on a koala corridor and “remove vital koala habitat”.

Leda Holdings has previously said it would keep a corridor as part of the development. It did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

It is also unclear whether the department provided more substantive advice over the rezoning.

The premier’s office refused access to several documents related to its contact with Iemma – including at the time it was contemplating the Leda rezoning – citing cabinet information and commercial interests.

In a statement, Minns’ spokesman said housing was “a top priority” and “it should surprise no one that the offices of the premier and relevant ministers regularly meet with a range of stakeholders from NGOs to housing advocates, developers, and their representatives to discuss housing issues”.

“Meetings are disclosed as required and conflicts of interest managed in accordance with established processes for declaring and managing any potential conflicts of interest,” the spokesman said. “All development projects across NSW are assessed according to merit.

“The Menangle development was determined independently of the government by the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure as is standard and appropriate practice.”

Records published on the NSW Lobbyist Register show Iemma’s firm, IPPA, has gone from strength to strength since Labor returned to government in 2023.

Morris Iemma with Cherie Burton after she was appointed housing minister in 2005.

Between 2019 and 2023, the company had 25 clients. In the 2½ years since, it has added more than 50. Many new clients are property developers, including major companies such as Billbergia, Deicorp and Coronation Property.

Logs of Department of Planning meetings with lobbyists show the IPPA did not hold a single meeting with the agency between 2017 and March 2023.

Since then, Iemma and the IPPA have had 25 meetings – or 49 per cent of all disclosed contacts between lobbyists and the department.

“He’s their Photios,” one senior figure in the property industry said, referring to Liberal Party powerbroker and lobbyist Michael Photios.

“And he’s good, too. He understands planning, he knows the lay of the land and maybe, more importantly, he has those relationships so he can explain what the government is thinking.”

Iemma said housing was a “major national and state issue” and the number of developer clients IPPA had was an indication of his “experience and background in construction, infrastructure and [the development] sectors including serving on advisory board of companies”.

He also played down meetings with Minns and Scully, saying there had been “no discussion of individual clients”.

Not all of those meetings have been disclosed by the premier. On April 8 last year, Minns and one of his senior advisers, Cherie Burton, met with Iemma for a breakfast meeting. Burton, who was Minns’ predecessor in the seat of Kogarah, was appointed minister for housing when Iemma became premier in 2005.

Unlike two other meetings with Minns, Iemma and Burton – in February and March 2024 – it was not published in ministerial diary disclosures meant to increase transparency over ministerial contact with lobbyists. The reason for the breakfast is not included in documents provided to the Herald.

Morris Iemma assisted with Chris Minns’ successful 2023 election campaign.

The government says it disclosed the other two meetings despite not needing to, and the “catch-ups” were “solely about party political matters and are not required to be disclosed”.

However, seven days later, on April 15, Iemma emailed Burton and referred “to our discussion in relation to the proposed housing redevelopment projects” in Macquarie Park and Kogarah.

The developer was seeking “an opportunity to brief you on the two projects and the significant new housing supply, employment opportunities and public amenities they can provide”.

It is unclear if the briefing occurred. Minns’ office did not respond to a question regarding the purpose of the April 8 breakfast, and whether the two developments were discussed.

Iemma did not specifically address that meeting in his response to the Herald’s questions.

The correspondence obtained by the Herald comes in the context of repeated calls from the Independent Commission Against Corruption for the Minns government to adopt a series of reforms to lobbying laws in NSW after a 2021 review found significant issues with the regime covering their conduct.

The review made more than two dozen recommendations, including new obligations for public officials who are lobbied and a ban on “undocumented or secret” meetings.

NSW ICAC chief commissioner John Hatzistergos, pictured in 2010.

The ICAC also called for a stand-alone regulator and code of conduct for public officials that would require them to “discourage” lobbying where there was a formal assessment process, such as a development application, in place.

But the Minns government has failed to act on the recommendations. Earlier this year, the chief commissioner of the ICAC, John Hatzistergos, revealed to a parliamentary inquiry that he had written to both Minns and Special Minister of State John Graham about the recommendations four times since Labor came to power, including twice in 2025.

In April, Hatzistergos said: “The situation … is one which concerns me greatly.”

A spokesman for Graham said the reforms were “important work that the government intends to get right”.

“We have a track record of strengthening the independence of our integrity agencies, putting their funding at arm’s length and expanding parliament’s role in independently overseeing ICAC funding,” the spokesman said in a statement.

His office did not respond to a question about what steps the government had taken to advance the reforms.

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