Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor doesn't oppose light rail, but you need to get your priorities right and you are just not getting them right.

I'd like to talk a little about hospital and health planning. We have the Northern Beaches Hospital and the Berejiklian state government spending billions and billions of dollars on it. They spent close to $2 billion on the North Shore Hospital, yet all they're prepared to allocate to Campbelltown Hospital, a hospital already behind the eight ball, is $600 million, despite the fact that the population is booming—a young population, a disadvantaged population and a population that lacks other resources. Again, we're behind the eight ball. Why is that the case? Why are they only allocating that amount of money to Campbelltown, and similar amounts to Nepean, when they should be spending more money to provide state-of-the-art services in these rapidly growing electorates? It's inequitable by anyone's standards, yet this is happening time and time again in western and south-western Sydney.

It is time the state and the federal governments stood up for the people of west and south-west Sydney and said, 'Enough is enough.' It is time to provide adequate resources to the electorates of Macarthur, Macquarie, Lindsay and Werriwa. Our school infrastructure is very, very poor, very old and in need of revision. It is time to spend some money on the schools in south-west Sydney. I know the buildings themselves would be unacceptable in the northern and eastern suburbs of Sydney. Yet no money is being spent. I have been approached by several principals about the absolutely degrading circumstances in which they have to teach and that their students have to put up with, and yet nothing is being done. We have had complaints regularly about the lack of funding for our TAFE and the way that it has been decimated by the state and federal governments, yet we still lack any commitment to provide upgrades to Campbelltown Macarthur TAFE. This is something that adds further to the difficulties of young people in the Macarthur region.

So there is inequity and inequality in all of this infrastructure development. It's time for this government to do the right thing. We're sick and tired of the questions and reviews and the so-called processes. To quote Mr Zimmerman's words on the infrastructure plan, the time to do it is now, especially with a new airport coming where we have time and a greenfields site to do the right thing. There's no need for any more studies. We know what needs to happen, and it's time for it to happen.

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