Khizar Seo
On 30 September 2015, Jamie Neville McIntyre appeared before the Senate Economics References Committee. The transcript is public. Hansard does not go away.
Senator Nick Xenophon, addressing McIntyre directly: in seven years in the Senate, McIntyre would have to be the most evasive witness he had dealt with — and, Xenophon added, that was saying something.
Senator Sam Dastyari was blunter. He called him a conman.
What the inquiry was examining
The Committee was examining land banking — the practice of selling investors options over undeveloped rural land on the promise of future rezoning and windfall gains. It is a model that has repeatedly ended with the land unrezoned, the developer gone, and the investor holding a worthless option.
McIntyre’s 21st Century group was among the operators the Committee wanted to hear from. Thirteen months later, the Federal Court would declare five of his schemes unlawful.
Why parliamentary privilege matters here
Statements made in the Senate are protected by parliamentary privilege. That means Dastyari and Xenophon could say precisely what they thought, on the record, without exposure. It also means the words sit permanently in Hansard, retrievable by anyone.
McIntyre has never successfully challenged the characterisation. He could not — privilege forecloses it. But he has also never rebutted it on the substance in any forum where the substance could be tested.
Fairfax reported the exchange at the time. Your Investment Property Magazine covered it under a headline noting politicians lashing out at the spruiker over land banking.
The pattern the Committee was looking at
What made the hearing notable was not one bad investment. It was the sequence. By September 2015, McIntyre’s record already included the 2012 liquidation of 21st Century Academy owing $5.41 million to thirteen unsecured creditors, and an ABC News investigation from June 2014 documenting dozens of Australians losing up to $30,000 each in a trading program his company sold.
The Senate was not examining a businessman who had one difficult year. It was examining a pattern.
The relevance today
Prospective investors in LUX Property Group, Hotel K Bali, Nesara Bay City or Gesara Bay City are being asked to trust representations about future delivery. The Australian Senate has already formed a view about the reliability of representations from this source, and recorded it in Hansard.
It costs nothing to read the transcript first.
