The ACT's Integrity Commission is probing the territory's purchase of blocks in West Basin but has ceased an investigation into the controversial purchase of a Glebe Park block by the now-defunct Land Development Agency.
In its first report, the territory's anti-corruption watchdog found there was no reasonable suspicion of corrupt conduct by either Chief Minister Andrew Barr or officials in the 2015 purchase of the land adjacent to Glebe Park for $4.2 million.
The purchase of the block raised eyebrows after it was revealed the government bought it for four times the amount of one valuation.
The block, known as Block 24, was part of the government acquisitions between 2014 to 2016 in the City to Lake project.
Questions were also raised about purchases of lakeside businesses in this project, which were required for the government's West Basin ambitions.
The purchase of these businesses, which include the former paddle boats shed in West Basin, have also been investigated by the Integrity Commission and will be in a future report.
It is the first time the commission has released a report since it was established in 2019. The commission is staunchly private about its investigations.
This investigation was prompted by a damning report from the ACT Auditor-General in 2016, which found the purchase of the blocks lacked transparency and accountability. An ACT Legislative Assembly committee came to the same conclusions in 2019 following an inquiry.
Former Liberal member Vicki Dunne, who chaired that inquiry, referred the matter to the Integrity Commission and this was catalyst for the investigation.
The report by the Integrity Commission, released on Thursday, only probed the Glebe Park deal but it said a separate report would be released on the purchases of three lakeside businesses.
The ACT's former Land Development Agency bought the block from a group which included developers Barry Morris and Graham Potts.
The group originally knocked back an offer in 2014 based on a valuation the block was worth between $950,000 and $1.05 million.
The commission's report said that valuation, commissioned by the Land Development Agency, was on the basis of the block's lease conditions, which only permitted commercial uses. However, the block's lease could potentially change to allow for residential in the future.
In 2015, the Land Development Agency received advice from Colliers International executive Paul Powderly that the value of the block was between $3.6 million to $3.8 million.
The advice from Mr Powderly was not considered a "formal valuation" and the Auditor-General was critical of the failure to get a formal valuation, however, the Integrity Commission said this did not amount to corrupt conduct.
"The documents produced by Mr Powderly were (as is obvious on their face) not valuations strictly so-called. That did not mean, however, that it was improper, let alone corrupt to rely on them," the Integrity Commission report said.
The block was bought for $3.8 million plus $380,000 in GST. The government has always maintained it bought the block so it could build a stormwater pond, which would replace the pond on the nearby Parkes Way roundabout.
The commission's report also probed what influence a proposed expansion plan for Casino Canberra had on the block.
The agency secured the block in September 2015, only a month after the casino's owners Aquis Entertainment put forward an unsolicited bid to expand onto that part of land.
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But the commission said there was no evidence this had any influence.
"It is manifest that the mere prior presentation of an unsolicited proposal for development, even if it did suggest the acquisition or use of Block 24, raises no issue of corrupt conduct," the report said.
"There is simply no evidence that it had or might have had any influence on any decision pertinent to the acquisition of the Block 24 by the territory."
The involvement of Mr Barr, who was the minister overseeing the Land Development Agency, was also examined in the Integrity Commission report but no evidence of corrupt conduct was found.
"There is no evidence that suggests Mr Barr made any decision concerning the purchase of Block 24 or attempted to influence that decision," the report said.
The ACT integrity commissioner Michael Adams told a committee inquiry in October that the commission was working on four reports, two of which were "quite substantial".
Mr Adams said the commission, at the time, was working on 12 preliminary investigations and 10 investigations.
