Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

you will now be able to avoid 22 sets of traffic lights. It will save you 20 minutes each way on that journey. I know the member for Reid is a great supporter of this particular project. If you decide to take Parramatta Road instead of taking the tunnel—and that's your choice—it is estimated that 50 per cent of the traffic will be removed from Parramatta Road as a result of this tunnel. That's the type of game-changing infrastructure that we are building, completing and opening, and we have all sorts of other projects underway.

Again, I refer back to what the Labor Party said in relation to this project. They couldn't get it done. Do you know what the now Leader of the Opposition said when he was shadow minister for transport? He said, 'If we're in government and I'm the transport minister, I won't put a cent into that project.' Do you know why he said that? He said, 'We're not going to do that because that is a road to nowhere.' That's what he said. This is a road which goes from the Sydney CBD into Western Sydney, to Parramatta, and he said that was a road to nowhere. We on this side of the House don't think Western Sydney is nowhere. The member for Reid certainly does not think that Western Sydney is nowhere. That is the type of attitude which the inner-city latte set sitting on the opposition benches have about Western Sydney. They think it's nowhere, so they wouldn't have put a cent into that project.

There are all of these great projects underway, getting going and in the planning phrase. They are game-changing projects: the Western Sydney Airport, the Melbourne Airport rail link, the Monash Rail, WestConnex—you name it. They are projects which the Labor Party could not deliver in their long six years in government but which we are getting going. And we've got more. The member for Ballarat mentioned a ripper project in Victoria, and that is the East West Link. By gosh, we want to see that project done. We've got the money on the table. The state government doesn't have to put in a cent. I know that everybody in the eastern suburbs wants that project done, as everybody in Perth wants Roe 8 and Roe 9 done. They want that road done as well. We are getting on with the job— (Time expired)

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