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

I rise today to speak about the government's commitment to infrastructure in Sydney. This is perhaps one of the most important and significant infrastructure investments in Commonwealth history, and it is particularly important to my electorate and to people in Western Sydney and Sydney more generally because infrastructure provision has perhaps been the single biggest challenge and issue for people in our major metropolitan cities over the past few decades.

Not only have we seen unprecedented growth in the north and south-west sectors of Sydney but we have seen governments, particularly state governments, who have failed to commit to the important road and rail projects that are required to sustain such growth. There is also social infrastructure. Suburbs in my electorate, out in Kellyville and Rouse Hill, are only just getting parks and social infrastructure on line, decades after housing has been put in place—another example of poor planning.

So it is with great joy that the majority of people in my electorate and in Sydney more generally see the great commitment of this government to better infrastructure in this budget. In difficult economic times it is particularly pleasing to see a government that understands that we need key infrastructure upgrades to ensure ongoing economic prosperity and ongoing social cohesion and that improvements in our major cities and economies will deliver great benefits to all.

Of course we have a state Liberal government in New South Wales now that is committed to great rail upgrades as well. The North West Rail Link is worth $10 billion. There will be eight railway stations: Cherrybrook, Castle Hill, Showground, Norwest, Bella Vista, Kellyville, Rouse Hill and Cudgegong Road. There will be 15.5 kilometres of tunnels—it will be the single biggest rail tunnel in the southern hemisphere—between Bella Vista and Epping. And the people of my electorate will soon be able to catch a train every five minutes in peak hour.

Unlike previous Labor administrations, not only is this project on time but it is also on budget. These are phrases that were lost to the lexicon of Australians—'on time and on budget'. A government produce a project on time and on budget? Never heard of in 16 years of a Labor administration! People have lost their faith in the ability of government to deliver. But not only is the New South Wales state government doing a fantastic job it is on time and it is on budget.

In this budget we see a great commitment to road infrastructure, in particular in Sydney, and this has been sadly missing from the previous Labor administrations, particularly when you consider we had an infrastructure minister who was based in Sydney. You might have thought that having an infrastructure minister based in Sydney would have meant more infrastructure funding for Sydney. You would have thought, 'Sure, wouldn't that be the case?' But, of course, we saw a six-year Labor federal administration with zero.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Zero!

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

Zero. Let's go over that again: zero. I note that the member for Bradfield, the parliamentary secretary, is here to confirm that since the federal government co-funded the M7—the best piece of infrastructure in Western Sydney—there has not been any federal government funding for Western Sydney or for Sydney more generally. But now in this budget we see NorthConnex, we see WestConnex and we see a commitment to key road upgrades in Western Sydney, including Bringelly Road, with construction starting. This is not the old Labor trick that we saw during 16 years of state Labor governments of putting up the signs and parking a few bulldozers strategically at major intersections before elections—and we saw this many times. We have the funding allocated in the budget; we have a commitment from the federal government to innovative funding models that include the private sector, ensuring that we are looking at how these infrastructure projects will be funded; but we also have a commitment to start construction within 12 months. That is written into the contracts of these critical infrastructure projects. Construction will have begun by next year on critical road projects in Western Sydney, ensuring that 10,000 jobs will be supported, with construction commencing for stage 1 early next year and stage 2 also expected to begin in 2015—two years ahead of schedule—and a completion date of 2019. This WestConnex road will of course be the biggest infrastructure upgrade Sydney roads in some time.

These infrastructure improvements are well received. Infrastructure provision has been the single biggest weakness of our major city for a long time. We now have a state government committed to better infrastructure provision, we now have a Commonwealth government that—whilst we have to take tough budgetary decisions—is making key decisions in infrastructure to keep the economy ticking over and to enable our major city and major economy to grow and continue to build and create jobs into the future. It is a far-sighted vision. I commend the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development and the assistant minister, and, on behalf of the people of Mitchell, I welcome the key commitments to billions of dollars of road funding for Sydney in this budget.