David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to express my disgust with plans announced recently by the New South Wales Liberals to dump 100,000 new people into the outer suburbs of Sydney in my electorate. They have announced a plan to call upon developers to come forward and show them the land that they want to develop in parts of outer urban fringes in my electorate in Western Sydney. In particular, they have identified a number of locations in the Penrith area, and this would amount to the establishment of 34,000 new homes in my local community. To put that into some perspective and context, it would amount to somewhere in the order of an extra 100,000 people being housed in my local community. The Penrith area currently has a population of about 180,000 people. That would be, in effect, a 50 per cent increase in our local population at a time when so many families and individuals in my community are angry with the lack of infrastructure that they currently see in their community.

The plan involves 34,000 new homes in suburbs such as Luddenham, Orchard Hills, Wallacia, Kemps Creek and Mount Vernon. This would be 2½ times the number of houses that we currently have in one of our biggest suburbs in the electorate, Glenmore Park. The incoming population that the development of these housing lots would achieve would be in the order of three times the population of the town of Bathurst. I note that the town of Bathurst has its own hospital. I am very interested to know what additional infrastructure is going to be provided to ensure that we have the infrastructure to meet not only our existing demands but also the demands of this incoming population. I note that some of the land that is mooted for development is amongst the richest agricultural lands in the Sydney basin—it is our food bowl—and we want to unleash new housing lots in there. The worst aspect of this plan is that the New South Wales Liberals have said that they will achieve these developments at no cost to the state government. That means one of two things: developers will have to pay the costs and they will pass them onto landowners, increasing the cost of housing; or local ratepayers will have to pay with increased rates.

We should not expect anything other than this. The last time the Liberals came to power in New South Wales they had a proposal called 'the South Creek valley', which was on the same scale, that they wanted to dump in our community. After a concerted community campaign they abandoned their plans, but it was not until the Labor government came into power that we finally shelved that proposal. I am calling upon everyone in my local community to join me in this campaign against this terrible proposal. (Time expired)

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for constituency statements has concluded.