Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the circus that visited Western Sydney last week on behalf of the Prime Minister and the Australian Labor Party. Indeed, we had seen the show in Western Sydney before at the last election when at Rooty Hill the Prime Minister promised a series of things for Western Sydney that failed to be delivered in her term of office after she was elected. The Prime Minister promised to consult on climate change—remember the people's panel? She instead delivered a carbon tax. But more specifically the Prime Minister promised to give $2.1 billion for a transport link in Western Sydney—the Epping to Parramatta rail link. Now she has announced just this week that half of that money will be ripped away and there will be no Parramatta-Epping rail link.

This is not the first time that we have had rail line politics played by a federal or state Labor government in New South Wales. In fact, residents in Western Sydney have for 15 years put up with rail line politics from Labor governments. Not only was the north-west rail line promised four or five times in my electorate and then eventually scrapped; the Parramatta to Epping line was also promised by the Carr Labor government. It was promised and promised and then scrapped. It makes you wonder what the member for Parramatta, who has been in this place since 2004, has been doing to obtain the Parramatta to Epping rail line. Promise after promise, election after election, time after time they have been talking about it. I remember these promises and these talks happening over a decade. Now we have had the Prime Minister tell the people of Western Sydney that half of that money is going to go.

It does not stop there. The Prime Minister promised to build an NBN over two years later. I have spoken to many of the business parks across Western Sydney—the places where the NBN would be most effective. Don't you think that if you were building an NBN to provide speeds through fibre to the premises hundreds of times faster than you would start with the businesses and business parks in Western Sydney that could provide the most productive increases for the economy? Of course you would. That is exactly why this government and this Prime Minister have failed to connect the main business parks in Western Sydney. In fact, they have been wastefully sending it to marginal seats and various homes in those marginal seats in a desperate attempt to turn around their political fortunes but ignoring the very hub of the economy—business. If you do not connect businesses such as the business parks in Western Sydney, what real benefit are you getting out of the NBN?

It continued in the last seven days. It is interesting to contrast the approaches of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. We did not just turn up to Western Sydney in the last seven days. The Leader of the Opposition has indeed visited Western Sydney over 51 times since the last election. He has been meeting with real people. I am happy to say that I can walk down any street in the electorates of Lindsay, Parramatta and Greenway—anywhere in Western Sydney—with the Leader of the Opposition at any time and any day of the week. I do not think the Prime Minister could do the same. It is not because of this culture of politics that we are hearing about; it is because of decisions the Prime Minister has taken, like the promises to build rail lines that never come to fruition. They have been copying Liberal Party policy and the not promise but commitment to fund and help the O'Farrell government build the WestConnex. Not only is it a commitment; it will be delivered.

In the last week we saw the shameless attempt of this government to copy the policy. They are bereft of ideas. The desperate and damned over there have decided that all they have left to do is copy Liberal Party policy and take the funding from the promises they made last election that they have not delivered. It is pretty pathetic, and the people in Western Sydney see right through it.

Infrastructure is a key priority in Western Sydney, and it was the Howard government who built the last significant infrastructure, funded from a federal level, in the M7—a fantastic motorway that has provided a great benefit and an economic boost to Western Sydney. It will be the next Liberal government, whenever that is, that will deliver the WestConnex motorway, a vital piece of infrastructure for people in Western Sydney. It certainly will not be the Prime Minister and this Labor government, who have promised and promised it. Members in Western Sydney, whether they be the member for Lindsay, the member for Chifley, the member for Parramatta or the member for Greenway, ought really to stand up to this Prime Minister and cabinet and tell them that they do not want any more false promises or false dawns for the people of Western Sydney. They need to provide real commitments and real delivery and not this circus of stunts that we saw in the last seven days. The people of Western Sydney are like all the hardworking people in the outer suburbs all around this country and they can see through desperate attempts to pull the wool over their eyes.