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

I think Mr Wallace has been watching far too many Monty Python films. He needs to go and find his holy grail of delivering proper infrastructure around Australia; not just pork-barrelling. If he wants to talk about state governments not delivering on infrastructure, look at the New South Wales government. Look at the disaster that they've caused with the inner city rail and the disaster of their stadiums policy.

I rise today to speak on the lack of provision of infrastructure in my electorate of Macarthur. I thank the member for Grayndler for raising this issue, which is an extraordinarily important issue in my electorate of Macarthur. Macarthur is the fastest growing electorate in New South Wales and one in which farms are being turned into new suburbs almost on a weekly basis without proper infrastructure, particularly transport infrastructure. Public transport infrastructure is vital in Macarthur. We have outlying suburbs where people have to travel to work, often by car, sometimes for three or four hours a day, which takes an enormous amount of time that could be spent with their young families and adds an enormous amount of stress on them just in travelling to work.

The federal Liberal government and state Liberal governments developed what they call City Deals, which is a completely politicised pork barrel that has failed to deliver for my electorate of Macarthur. I'm pleased to see that the member for Hume is in the chamber today. He should be talking about the lack of public infrastructure provided for his electorate of Hume. He should be supporting—

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