Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Youth and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to highlight an ongoing problem that has affected people in my electorate for many years. Way back in 1964 the Labor Party said that Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport would reach its capacity by 1980. Forty-four years later we are still debating whether there is a need for a second airport in the Sydney basin. Many people would know that the previous member for Lindsay, the Hon. Jackie Kelly, the previous member for Macquarie, Kerry Bartlett, the former member for Mitchell, the Hon. Alan Cadman, and I, together with many others on this side of politics—

Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mrs Markus interjecting

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Youth and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and, of course, Louise Markus—have been lobbying for nearly a decade to resolve this debate. People on our side of politics believe that there should not be a second airport built at Badgerys Creek. It warmed my heart when the minister for transport, the Hon. Anthony Albanese, said on the 7 May 2008 Steve Price program on 2UE that there would not be a second airport built on the Badgerys Creek site. He mentioned that the government may be looking for another site but that that site had not been determined as yet.

Many people who live in the planning zone around the proposed airport site at Badgerys Creek have had their lives on hold for more than two generations. All the things we take for granted that we can do with our own homes—including realising the value of our homes and borrowing against them for things like holidays, motor vehicles, boats and education for our kids—these people have been denied. Local council and state planning regulations relating to airport sites have meant that they have not been able to realise the value of their homes, develop their properties or build a garage, a pergola or a granny flat—or even an outside dunny, for that matter. They have not been able to erect a water tank or even pave a driveway. They have lived in a home that is not their castle. They own it, they pay for it and they pay the rates and yet they have no rights relating to their own property, all because of the procrastination of various governments that have been in power for the past 30 years.

I simply ask that, if the transport minister, the Hon. Anthony Albanese, who happens to be the minister not only for transport but for infrastructure, regional development and local government, has stated that they are not building a second airport at Badgerys Creek, then can he please direct the local councils of Campbelltown, Liverpool, Camden and Penrith and the state government and counterpart agencies to cancel the zoning restrictions placed around property in the region so that these people can simply do the same things with their properties that you or I—or anybody else in the state of New South Wales—take for granted with our own homes.

The government needs a plan for the site and a vision for the future. In the absence of a vision from the government, I would like to outline my vision for the Commonwealth owned land at Badgerys Creek, as we now have the opportunity to change the face of Western Sydney for the future and lift the quality of housing, jobs and opportunities. Major issues in Western Sydney are housing affordability, lack of infrastructure and too few local jobs. This region is also one of the fastest growing economies: it produces $54 billion in economic output annually, it houses 30 per cent of small businesses in New South Wales and it is in close proximity to the M7, the M5, the M4 and the proposed southern Sydney freight line.

The 1,700-hectare property at Badgerys Creek presents the federal government with an ideal opportunity to provide for all of the above by developing the site into a business park and releasing land for housing. If the federal government were to sell the Badgerys Creek site for such a project, it could also fund the infrastructure around the site in order to attract business investors to the region and reverse traffic flows in Western Sydney. As the federal government owns this land, it provides a unique opportunity to realise not only the monetary value for the Australian taxpayer but the social value of producing an area—(Time expired)