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

Nothing could tell you more or speak louder about the contempt of this government for Western Sydney than when, on a motion about Western Sydney, we have Queensland talk one, Queensland talk two, Queensland talk three. Where is the member for Lindsay, a Western Sydney Liberal MP? She is not here. They have to get all the Queensland contingent to speak about Western Sydney, because they've got no clue about Western Sydney. When they announced the Western Sydney City Deal, they announced it in Redfern, 38 kilometres away from Western Sydney. Now they have to have people from Queensland defend a dodgy deal.

The deal itself is nothing but marketing spin. It is basically a fancy-sounding plan to distract from the dirty deals and out-and-out political pork-barrelling and rorting that has become the pungent hallmark of this Liberal government. Western Sydney residents are paying the price for this, unless of course they happen to live in a seat occupied by a Liberal MP. Is that fair? No. Should residents be forced to sit in clogged roads or late, crowded trains because Liberals at a federal and New South Wales level want to rort and politically manipulate infrastructure funding? No. Western Sydney infrastructure is not being determined on the need of residents. It's being determined purely by the political needs of the Liberals.

Exhibit A is answers that Finance Minister Mathias Cormann recently released to a question on notice about the Western Sydney Infrastructure Plan Local Roads Package—a lot of blue, not much red. It's a Western Sydney Infrastructure Plan. There are a dozen seats in Western Sydney fully or partially covered. It's one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. You go through the list, and there are nearly 30 projects either completed, constructed or with plans for future work, and, out of the list, the overwhelming bulk sit in either marginal Liberal seats or targeted seats. Just two projects are in seats outside this classification or in Labor seats. One is in the Chifley electorate: $200,000 for intersection works at Luxford Road and High Street leading into Mount Druitt Hospital.

Many of the 30 projects are designed to upgrade intersections. During the election you had the Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure breathlessly announce federal investment into roundabout construction. Seriously. That was last year. This year in the budget look at the priority road and rail projects—six in Liberal-National seats, two in Labor seats and one split between Labor and Liberal. It's all here in the budget papers. Of the projects in the two Labor seats, one is for the Prospect Highway upgrade in the electorate of my neighbour the member for Greenway. Putting aside the fact that the project descriptions for both the New South Wales and federal governments get the name of the road to be upgraded wrong—it's Blacktown Road, not Reservoir Road—the project was announced as a plan by the Baird government five years ago. Five years ago they announced this upgrade project for Prospect Highway, and now we're expecting to see work on this begin in 2021.

Overall I simply doubt the New South Wales or fed Libs will deliver, because they always make the funding announcements and don't spend. There was $1.7 billion underspent last year and an average of $1.2 billion underspent for the last six. When it comes to Western Sydney, or any deal for infrastructure for Western Sydney, they've always got an announcement or a press release but nothing concrete to make life better. The Australian Automobile Association reckons that the road and traffic congestion that we encounter is a problem for 78 per cent of Chifley residents, but this infrastructure pork-barrel can't do anything or find anything to decongest the major road leading to Mount Druitt Hospital: Francis Road, Rooty Hill. There is nothing to decongest Richmond Road between Dean Park and Marsden Park, which sits on the doorstep of massive residential growth; nothing to decongest the late and crowded T1 western rail line; nothing to extend the North West Metro rail line to St Marys; nothing to progress the M9 running parallel to the M7.

On top of this, the Western Sydney City Deal that we are talking about excludes the largest local government area in Western Sydney, Blacktown City Council, who are expecting massive residential growth.

They need to plan for the emergence of a new CBD at Marsden Park. They should be an ideal member of the deal. Why are they excluded? It is because they are one of the few councils to stand up and call out the federal government's dodgy, politically corrupt approach to infrastructure spending—the same spending that not only sees infrastructure built to meet political need but also saw dodgy land deals around Badgerys Creek airport delivered to Liberal Party donors, with the Liberals paying 10 times more for this land. The airport was announced five years ago and billions have been ploughed into it, and no-one in Western Sydney knows where the planes will fly because no flightpath has been released. This just goes to show that the way the Liberals approach infrastructure is all about politics. It is not about need; it's about their political need. It is an absolute embarrassment that they have not one Western Sydney MP to back in their deal in this chamber right now. (Time expired)

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