Some of Australia's wealthiest and best-connected business people are behind the company that issued elderly tenants with negotiable termination notices for 12 previously government-owned houses in Homebush. The company sold the houses within months of acquiring them, almost doubling its investment.
Centennial Property Group offered cash settlements and asked the tenants to leave the properties on Welfare Street and Flemington Road in Homebush shortly after buying the properties from the state government's Sydney Olympic Park Authority in June.
Seven families moved out but five are fighting to stay, including Gerald and Grace Donnelly. The five families armed with sales documents that specify they are protected tenants. They also have letters from the previous owners, the state government's Sydney Olympic Park Authority, which say there was no intention to end their tenancies.
CPG's owners include Alex Waislitz, a long-standing adviser to the Pratt family and worth hundreds of millions of dollars in his own right*.
One of the directors of the company is Lance Rosenberg, the former head of stockbroking house Tricom. Mr Rosenberg successfully overturned a ban on acting as a company director in the wake of the near-collapse of his stockbroking company Tricom during the global financial crisis. On its website, CPG lists its executive team as Lyle Hammerschlag, Jonathan Wolf and Kim Kitchen. Mr Hammerschlag is the son of former Freedom Furniture boss Ivan Hammerschlag.
The Homebush deal is a spectacular outcome for the publicity-shy Centennial Property Group. The group won the state government tender for the property in June, and added $4.7 million to the property price tag in just six months.
Privatising Profit and Socialising Losses
The ultimate goal would be to bring it [the land] into public ownership The fate of the "jewel of Jervis Bay" Huskisson
The United Nations' world heritage body will issue a "please explain" to the Abbott government demanding a detailed report on the threat posed by the Badgerys Creek airport to the natural integrity of the Blue Mountains Airport and world heritage status
The state-government's sell-off of public housing at Millers Point hit a snag on Tuesday night when all three properties on offer passed in at auction.
There were 11 potential buyers gathered in the Ray White auction room in Double Bay to compete for three heritage-listed terraces on Kent Street
Up until last night the government had no issue finding buyers for other Millers Point properties, some of which were so popular they sold for more than $1 million above the price guides.
Save Millers Point From Greed
Bream, flathead, mackerel, leatherjacket: Bob Flood has fished them all from the wharves at Millers Point, and says they make "beautiful eating".
The fourth-generation resident has "never been crook", despite warnings about fishing in Sydney Harbour. "You just cut them behind the spine, take their head off and skin them and bring them home. Mum used to cook them up … sensational," he says.
As well as pulling the odd meal from the harbour, Bob, 64, has also drawn a livelihood from it. His teenage years were spent pressing wool into bales, ready for loading onto ships for export. As a tugboat worker, he helped haul oil barges up Parramatta River to the Clyde refinery; then he became a painter and docker on the wharves."I worked casual at all sorts of places. When the ships came in, you had a quid. When they weren't here, you did it tough," he said.
Sad Social Cleansing In Sydney courtesy of Soil Sickness and Casinos