Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm glad the member for Lindsay mentioned the Western Sydney International Airport Experience Centre, which relies heavily on augmented reality. It seems fitting, given this government's approach to infrastructure in Western Sydney. Whenever you hear the member for Lindsay—and I'm going to put this video on my Facebook page—talk about the wonders of this airport, you need to go to that member and ask her where the flight plans are, which communities in the member for Lindsay's area will be affected by a 24/7 airport and what she is doing to stand up for communities in her area. If you get a response on jobs, know this: the Liberal government justified putting in that airport and breaking an election promise that they had on that airport on the basis of jobs, and they can only deliver 50 per cent of all the jobs to Western Sydney residents, which I think is a joke for a $10 billion project. We have all these infrastructure needs in Western Sydney, which are in this resolution about the Sydney Metro West project, that weren't even mentioned by the member for Lindsay—hardly at all. And yet there is congestion occurring from Penrith to Parramatta on the T1 Western Line that the member for Lindsay made no reference to to say that this should be a priority.

Now, I commend the member for Parramatta for raising this. She has to raise this because in her area, in Parramatta, the figures—even in the figures that were released today in the Sydney Morning Heraldshow that the population of Parramatta, which was roughly 240,000 people in 2016, will leap to 380,000 by 2031. So getting improved infrastructure to move people from Parramatta to the Sydney CBD is very important.

From my point of view, I want to see similar sorts of things happen with an extension of the metro or improvements for those long-suffering passengers between Parramatta and Penrith. I stand at those railway stations and I see rows of people five deep crowding into those trains. Be they from Mount Druitt, Rooty Hill, Doonside or Blacktown, they are standing for ages on a rail line that people depend on to get home at the end of the day. Three days out of five, people run late because those trains run late. People who have family responsibilities, who help the kids with homework, who have sporting responsibilities or who just want to get home to spend time with family should not be late home three days out of every five because we have not worked out how to decongest that rail line.

Put in some of the ideas that were initially proposed, like, for example, the western expressway, and find some way to decongest that line. At the point in time when it was proposed at the start of this decade, the expressway cost roughly $500 million. We've seen no investment in it. From my point of view, I do believe there should be federal investment in the Sydney Metro West project or in decongestion. While I understand the member for Parramatta is forcefully advocating for her electorate, and rightly so—there's no more vocal advocate for the Parramatta area than Julie Owens, the member for Parramatta—I am also speaking up for people in my area who are facing transport delays either on public transport or on the roads.

Mount Druitt to Parramatta has been recognised by Infrastructure Australia as one of the hotspots. Nothing is being done to address that. This government has no plans for the M9, which should be built and run in parallel with the M7. While the Sydney Metro project in the north is a great project, I do have residents complaining about delays and breakdowns on that rail line. I think of the people who go to Tallawong railway station and are confronted by what appears to be four football fields of parking. There is no centralised, one-stop parking station. I hate to think of them returning to their cars that are like little pressure cookers at the end of the day in the hot summers. There hasn't been dedicated investment in a parking station at that site. I think of the residents in Doonside. I have had to take action through the Australian Human Rights Commission because of breaches of federal disability law. We can't even get investment to upgrade existing railway stations like the one at Doonside.

There are a lot of things in Western Sydney where we need not words, not platitudes but concrete plans, concrete financing and concrete itself to show that work is happening in one of the fastest-growing regions in the country.

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