Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I start by congratulating the member for Parramatta on this very excellent motion. My wife recently had her job relocated to Parramatta. It means that her drive—because that is the only way to get to Parramatta from Collaroy, or the northern beaches—on some days is two hours both ways. What the member for Parramatta said about the disruption to family lives and the impact it has on children and on communities I can only echo, with a factor of 10. It has had an impact on our daughter, on our family and indeed on my wife's psychology and mental health—being stuck in traffic like that. I am often bemused, and not in a good way, when people from other cities of Australia talk about traffic congestion. As a member of parliament, you are shunted around the country to different committee hearings and you note that no-one quite knows what traffic congestion is until they come to Sydney.

Having heaped all that praise upon the member for Parramatta, I should note that the state government of New South Wales have done an enormous amount for the people of Western Sydney and indeed for the entire Sydney basin. They have spent $23½ billion on WestConnex, the M4 and the M5. They are spending $4 billion on two light rail lines in Parramatta. The Metro North West, which recently opened, cost $8 billion. The Parramatta Metro West, to which this motion speaks, will cost somewhere in the vicinity of $22 billion. The Sydney Metro is another $23½ billion. There is the Aerotropolis, of course. I don't need to say very much more about that. There is the first high-rise public school in Australia, at Parramatta, which is $300 million. And I left out NorthConnex, which will relieve a lot of traffic pressure on west Pennant Hills Road and people trying to get into the Parramatta CBD. The reason for all of this, let us not forget, was the $50 billion infrastructure backlog that was left at the end of the Carr-Keneally government, when you had a premier who said, 'Sydney is full; people need to go away,' and then, at that very moment, the Rudd federal government increased immigration to 400,000 people, many of whom settled in Western Sydney.

I would also reflect on a couple of other things. The first is the move the state government has made to move a lot of government services and departments to Parramatta. While I welcome this in theory and in principle, it does have two deleterious effects. The first is, there are many core services—for example, legal services—that have an ecosystem based in the Sydney CBD. Relocating part of those services to Parramatta has a very negative impact on productivity. It also has the impact of diminishing people's access to those services from other parts of Sydney. From the Northern Beaches, on most days, a drive to Parramatta can take up to two hours. That's not the case to the CBD, and it's not the case for many other people in Sydney.

I think the state government needs to be very cautious about the services it relocates to Parramatta and the sorts of access impacts that has on the rest of Sydney, and the rest of New South Wales, and on the ecosystem or supply chain, particularly in legal services where you have lawyers and barristers based in the city. The courts' specialities, like industrial relations, are also based in the CBD. The Fair Work Commission is based in William Street, Woolloomooloo. The other thing is a—

Mr Husic interjecting—

The member for Chifley knows very well, because he and I have many friends in common—they like to deny it, depending on who they're having dinner with, that many of them do live in the western suburbs of Sydney.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Now he denies it too. I hear the cock crowing a third time, Mr Deputy Speaker! The other thing is— (Time expired)

Mr Husic interjecting—

See this speech in context