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

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance, which is very close to my heart. Certainly the people of my electorate of Macarthur feel very deeply the lack of infrastructure provided by this federal government and also by the New South Wales government. I can talk very well about the Western Sydney Airport. I well remember the debates about the site of the Western Sydney Airport going back to the Fraser government in the 1970s. Many governments, of both persuasions, have over the years had a degree of responsibility for not providing the definitive site for the Western Sydney Airport.

I do think it is a very good thing that this government has finalised the site and work is underway. And I have been out to see the earthworks going ahead. But what I would say is that, unless this government provides proper public transport to the new Western Sydney Airport, it will not be a successful airport. Every infrastructure person, every town planner, every transport planner believes that the Leppington line, the link to Sydney and South Western Sydney, should open when the Western Sydney Airport opens. The corridor is already preserved yet this government, time and time again, has denied that development, which must occur if the airport is to be successful.

People of Macarthur are sick of the lack of provision for this, because this is the one line that will connect my community to the great benefits that the Western Sydney Airport could offer in terms of jobs, transport and freight and in terms of connecting to the Kingsford Smith airport and Greater Sydney. So, it has to happen. Everyone agrees that it does. But this government just denies it time and time again. Its motives for doing this are unclear to me. I suspect it's because it wants to provide infrastructure in the Liberal and conservative-held electorates to the north. But it is doing nothing for Western Sydney and South Western Sydney, and it's an absolute disgrace.

Those opposite seem to be a little bit misguided when it comes to infrastructure in Western Sydney and South Western Sydney. They're delivering the square root of absolutely bugger all yet they talk themselves up time and time again. Members would do well to note the previous Labor government's achievements in delivering infrastructure. It was the former Labor government that increased the annual investment in our nation's transport, energy, telecommunications and water infrastructure, with it having doubled from $29 billion to $57.7 billion by the end of the Rudd government.

Under this government, we've had two ministers for infrastructure—the member for Aston and the member for Riverina—who have delivered nothing. One could be forgiven for thinking that the coalition took the notion of delivering infrastructure seriously, given the portfolio is so well represented in the ministry and by the Prime Minister's friends yet in actual fact they are delivering nothing. The Prime Minister and his front bench talked a big game in infrastructure throughout the recent election campaign, but they've left us waiting, with very little information, on so many projects. They are always talking about it happening in the future, but it's not happening. Less than 30 per cent of the government's so-called $100 billion 10-year infrastructure program is budgeted for the next four years.

We also desperately need a number of infrastructure projects in my electorate, not just the rail link to Western Sydney Airport. In the last 20 years almost 40 people have been killed on Appin Road in my electorate, along with terrible motor vehicle accidents that have left many in my community grieving. Time and time again we've requested action from this government and the New South Wales Berejiklian government. What have they done? Absolutely nothing. It's shameful. They are letting the people of Macarthur and the Illawarra die on this road with their complete inaction and ignorance of the problem.

Thousands and thousands of people have moved into my electorate on the basis of rapidly developing new suburbs, whose names even I can't remember—suburb after suburb—yet there is no public transport infrastructure. It is absolutely disgraceful. Developers are ripping literally billions of dollars from the allowed new developments in my electorate. Over 30,000 new people have moved into my electorate since the 2016 election, yet there is no public transport infrastructure.

Our schools, built in the fifties and sixties, are disgraceful—please see my previous speeches about this—yet nothing is being done. The NBN is a disgrace. There are large areas that can't get coverage.

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