Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Making our cities a better place to live and to work sounds like a very noble idea. But, after doing some in-depth research on the Western Sydney City Deal, which took about two minutes because of the complete lack of detail, I had a bit of a flashback. I pictured my children expectantly waiting to unwrap a Kinder Surprise, and then opening their Kinder Surprise to find that, actually, there was nothing inside of it. You can imagine the disappointment, because this is something that's not just about the chocolate; it's about what comes inside. If they'd wanted chocolate, they could have gone for a chocolate frog. So, okay, they still get chocolate, but, sadly, it's a really hollow experience—and that, for me, pretty much sums up these so-called City Deals. There's a lot of expectation—it's beautiful packaging—but it's pretty empty inside.

As the member for Macquarie, which encompasses the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, time and time again our Kinder Surprises don't have a toy. Sometimes we don't even get the chocolate; we just get the foil, the words on the outside telling us what's inside and how great it's going to be—but usually it's great for everybody but us. From trains to bridges to housing to health care, we are expected to continually make sacrifices for the benefit of those not as west as us. We're too far west to benefit from investment in the city but too close to the city to be compensated through regional funding and grants, and so my community continues to run second. The City Deals program is no exception. There is no clear process, there is no clear source of funding and there are no clear outcomes. There is real apprehension that the City Deals funding will be targeted towards Penrith and other identified strategic centres in the west, like Blacktown, Liverpool and Campbelltown, rather than the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury. This is particularly the case given the focus in the draft District Plans that the Greater Sydney Commission's devised and the limited attention paid to the local government areas that don't have strategic centres or major employment centres. The New South Wales government indicates that these draft plans will form the basis of the City Deals agreements.

Let's be clear—neither the Blue Mountains nor the Hawkesbury is even identified in the key western city map in the Greater Sydney Commission draft plan. Now, that's the one on page 26, in case you're looking. There is not a mention of the Blue Mountains or Hawkesbury on that map. It doesn't even bother giving them a name, or in the definition of what the western city is—so you can understand our concerns. Are we just the backyard? Thanks to flood plains and world heritage, you can't shove more houses in us.

How will the lack of recognition affect obtaining funding from this western City Deal? The hefty Western Sydney City Deal document—all one page of it—talks about improved environmental and liveability outcomes. Yet, at the very first hurdle, this objective will not be achieved because this government is not putting a curfew on Badgerys Creek airport. How does the government's promise of improved environmental and liveability outcomes happen as a result of aircraft noise 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They're not even interested in us maintaining our current liveability, let alone improving it.

This is not personal opinion. This is reality. We are close enough to the site of Western Sydney Airport to be under a noisy flight path and have planes flying over our beautiful World Heritage Area and quaint villages at all hours, but we are too far away to benefit from any job creation or improved infrastructure and investment. If we are to be lumbered with an airport that reduces our liveability, I would support the comments by Blue Mountains City Council in its City Deal submission, that it is reasonable to expect that there is some return for the impacts from Western Sydney Airport. One that would be essential is that the rail connection between the airport and St Marys be an integral part of the package, and be delivered from day 1. As for the Hawkesbury, the need is great. If the City Deals are to have any substance at all they must address the need for investment in new flood resilient bridges, without destroying the very thing that makes the Hawkesbury liveable: its agricultural and its heritage. While it says little about the Windsor-Richmond area, it does talks about improving cultural experiences. If you can't use a deal like this to save the oldest public square in Australia and convict-made infrastructure, then it isn't a deal worth having.

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