Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak about infrastructure, which impacts on my electorate in multiple ways. In the Hawkesbury, a region long ignored by the Liberals, we need to see a pointless Windsor Bridge replacement project stopped and for the New South Wales government to see sense and plan and construct a third crossing for the Hawkesbury River. My Blue Mountains residents are also facing the ridiculous situation of trains being built for our rail lines by the Baird government that are too long and too wide for our stations and tunnels, as revealed by the New South Wales member for Blue Mountains, Trish Doyle. We also face a slow drive on the M4 as we commute, morning and night, squinting into the sun in both directions.

But, without doubt, the biggest concern on infrastructure in my electorate is the plan for Western Sydney Airport. As opposition leader Bill Shorten said of the government last week:

They have made a mess of the process of Badgerys Creek by ignoring the locals instead of including them.

He is right. At every step of this process the community has been ignored, and no last-minute invitation from the Minister for the Environment and Energy to speak briefly with local environmentalists and residents is going to change the year of running from the community that preceded it. He did not even conduct the meeting on his own but had the Minister for Urban Infrastructure by his side, ready to defend the project rather than delve into the detail of the issues.

The government's inadequate response to the Western Sydney Airport environmental impact statement for Badgerys Creek Airport shows the lengths it will go to to get this airport happening, regardless of its impact on the environment and the quality of life of Blue Mountains and Western Sydney residents. On 15 September 2016 the final EIS was published. It is a mammoth project, it is worth billions of dollars, and the environment minister took just 58 days to have his department analyse the thousands of pages of the EIS, advise him and deliver a considered verdict. We do not know how good a job the final EIS did of responding to the issues raised by my community, because my request to make those submissions public was refused. So I remain firmly of the view that the government's approval process does not meet the test supported by the Labor caucus: that the planning be right, including rail, from day one; that it be a creator of good jobs for Western Sydney residents; that the community have their say; and that there is a proper environmental assessment process. These criteria have not been met.

Let's start with the need for a proper environmental assessment process. There have been 41 conditions put on this project. They have been kindly described to me by one Blue Mountains resident as 'complete fluff'. The approvals push every serious study into the future. The conditions that have been approved for an airport at Badgerys Creek based on indicative flights confirm that the lower Blue Mountains will be subjected to disruptive aircraft noise 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no protections guaranteed; unlike residents of the eastern suburbs, the inner west and the North Shore affected by Kingsford Smith Airport, residents of the western suburbs and the Blue Mountains will not have the protection of a curfew or hourly flight caps.

The approval conditions released by the Minister for the Environment give the go-ahead to the airport despite the government's failure to include comprehensive noise plans in the final EIS. This breaks their own promise. On May 6, 2016 the Minister for Urban Infrastructure said:

Allocating the flight paths to minimise the individual impact on any one point will form part of a comprehensive noise mitigation plan to be contained in the final EIS.

The EIS does not contain those plans; that promise has been broken. The environment minister has approved an airport without knowing what the flight paths will be and what the noise impacts on communities, schools and individuals will be.

And not only has the coalition government failed to provide comprehensive noise mitigation, but the approvals conditions give no certainty that the commitment to use head-to-head operations overnight to reduce night-time noise for residential areas will actually occur. This commitment was made by Labor originally, and I described it at the time as a step in the right direction to recognise the noise impacts on homes under the flight path. The approvals document merely says that the flight path design should 'minimise, to the extent practicable, the impact of overnight flights over residential and wilderness areas'. That is hardly an ironclad promise. Even if the head to head take-offs and landings to the south-west do occur, the best estimate seems to be that it could only happen 80 per cent of the time. That is 73 nights a year when it will not happen—or more than two months a year. My community has a range of views—from 'No airport ever' to 'Won't it be nice to be close when we go on holidays'—but the common element is the belief that we should be able to sleep at night, in peace, as much as anybody else in Sydney can.

To give you an idea of the level of noise we will experience from overnight flights, I took my decibel meter with me into the House today at question time. If the estimates are right, a flight's noise over our homes would peak at about the same volume as the Minister for the Environment, in full swing, answering a question—hopefully, though, for less than three minutes! They do not have to put up with that in Lindfield in the middle of the night—and nor should anyone have to—because they get a curfew from 11 pm to 6 am. Others would say that there were already aircraft using Mascot at night even with a curfew. We get that. The rules say that small propeller-driven aircraft, low-noise jets that meet weight and noise requirements, and a limited number of freight aircraft can operate at night. This allows movement of time-critical freight, including mail and fresh food. A small number of international passenger-jet movements can be approved during the shoulder period between 5 am and 6 am—and, of course, emergency flights can come and go. But during the curfew aircraft must operate over Botany Bay, so there are still protections. That all seems very reasonable. So if there has to be an airport, give us the same rules. It would, at least, be fair.

You will have to forgive us as a community for being cynical about any commitments made by this government. They are either deliberately misleading us or are simply incompetent. Let me explain. In spite of decisions being made without flight paths finalised, the Western Sydney Airport website helpfully provides us with a noise modelling tool. This noise modelling tool is the department's own tool designed to help us residents understand what is being proposed. You punch in your address and it tells you the number of flights you will face and at what height. What that tool tells me is that if my child goes to Blaxland East Public School, which nestles in a quiet bush neighbourhood, the school, homes and neighbours will receive by 2030 up to 75 flights over it in the day time, 20 more in the evening and up to 30 overnight, at less than 6,000 feet.

That information does not match with the promises the minister has made. So which information is right? Do we believe the information we are being given? How can we believe the information we are being given? Is it any wonder that our view is that the commercial imperatives and profitability of airlines and the airport operator will go ahead of the best interests of our community?

As an aside, I draw people's attention to Infrastructure Australia analysis, which identifies a number of potential limitations which could present risks to achieving the estimated economic benefits of the airport, including inconsistencies in the economic appraisal methodology. But the basic facts are: if it is good enough for the rest of Sydney to be given protections through things like caps and curfews then it is good enough for the Blue Mountains and Western Sydney, and if it is good enough for the minister's own electorate on Sydney's North Shore to be spared from aircraft noise at night by curfew then it is good enough for us, at roughly the same distance and with aircraft at roughly the same height. Western Sydney and the Blue Mountains residents should not be treated as second-class citizens and collateral damage of big business and the coalition government.

What we are left with now is an approval for an airport where we do not know what the flight paths will be, what the noise impacts will be, what the biodiversity management will be, what the exact impacts on our world heritage national park are, what the air quality impacts really are, when the fuel lines might be built and how the electricity grid relocation will work. They basically gave the airport the go-ahead on the proviso that the site developer comes up with plans for these things. Every single major study is pushed into the future and most are likely to occur after contracts have been signed. What happens if those studies do not stack up? While the government may not have a plan for that, my community does. Anyone who decides to build this airport, whether its the operators of Sydney Airport or another consortium, needs to know that the one thing they will not get from our community is silence. We will not be silent when we see an unfair plan. We will not be silent when we see a poor process and we will not be silent about something that is bad for our community—not now and not ever.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you Deputy Speaker. It is good to see you in the chair—great authority and grace when you are there. I look forward to talk about the infrastructure statement and I will be more broad and talk about infrastructure in general. Obviously, one of the biggest infrastructure projects that is happening in regional Australia is the dual duplication of the Pacific Highway, and what a very important project it is. In 2013 roughly $5½ billion was needed to complete the dual duplication of the highway. We do this for three reasons, and you being a regional MP would understand this. Firstly, we do it obviously to decrease fatalities on the road. The fatalities on the highway are still far too high. They are at multi-decade lows because of the work that has already been done on the dual duplication. Where the highway has been dual duplicated the fatalities have fallen, and therefore the fatalities on the highway as a whole have dropped off. But certainly in those areas where the dual duplication has not happened, there are still far too many fatalities. They happen regularly and they are a great tragedy for the whole community.

Secondly, the other reason we do this is that it is good for jobs. At the peak in my electorate, probably in about six to 12 months, there will be close to 2,500 to 3,000 direct jobs that have been created in the building of this highway. We know that has a wider spin-on. There are roughly 2½ jobs for every job you create, so you are talking around 7,000 jobs direct and indirect in my community because of the government's commitment to this project.

Thirdly, once the highway is finished, you will see a lot more economic activity. Transport is going to be much easier for freight, but also tourism will increase because more people will find it easier to get to the region. We have already seen that in areas that now have the dual duplication. So they are the three reasons that we do it, in that order: fatalities, jobs and economic activity, with fatalities No. 1 by a long way.

But there is a story to tell about that.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:26 to 17:37

Mr Deputy Speaker, I will just rehash because I know you were riveted—as most of the people in the chamber were—when I was cut off in the middle of a sentence by that interruption from the House of Reps. I was talking about the Pacific Highway and the wonderful investment that it is, for three reasons. No. 1, as I said, is the decrease in fatalities—the main reason that we do these things; and then there are the jobs and the economic activity that it brought.

Deputy Speaker, you are probably saying to yourself, 'I am sure there was bipartisan support for this.' You are wrong if you are thinking that. There was not bipartisan support because, in 2013, the then Labor government made a very strategic decision. Firstly, let me compliment the previous Labor government because at one stage they did lift federal funding on the Pacific Highway, from what had historically been a 50-50 split to 80-20. But then, lo and behold, there was a change of state government in New South Wales to a Liberal-Nationals coalition government and the then federal Labor government decided that they did not want to fund it at 80 per cent anymore; they wanted to go back to 50 per cent.

The state government had not been budgeting for that, because it had been funded at 80-20 for quite some time and the completion of the highway would be delayed. The state government were not in a position to do that because that is not how it had been funded, and it all would have been delayed, but—and I compliment a previous minister for infrastructure, Warren Truss, who I had discussions with prior to the 2013 election—we got a commitment that, if the federal coalition government were to be elected in 2013, the coalition government would maintain the funding for the Pacific Highway at the 80-20 split. That meant that the over $5 billion was continued at a pace and is continuing at a pace. Just a couple of weeks ago I announced tenders for $1 billion worth of works. A lot of the highway that is left to do is actually in the federal electorate of Page. There is a 155-kilometre section between Woolgoolga in the south and Ballina in the north, all within the electorate of Page. At the moment there is work taking place on about 90 kilometres of that section. So on 90 kilometres of the highway there is work taking place, but on 65 kilometres there is yet to be any work started. We do have a 2020 completion date. I was delighted to announce tenders worth $1 billion to ensure that the work starts on the remaining 65 kilometres, and that work will be starting very shortly. I think it is in about six to 12 months when work on the highway in that section will be at a peak. As I said, there will probably be around 3,000 direct jobs created and many more thousands of indirect jobs.

I will also broaden on some other infrastructure that we are doing specifically in my electorate. As you know, Deputy Speaker, the coalition government strongly supports the National Stronger Regions Fund. I was delighted in round 2 of that fund to get five projects for my local community. There was $3½ million for the Casino saleyards, a regional saleyard that is very important. The Casino meatworks is across the road and employs over 1,00 people, and is the biggest private employer in the region for hundreds of kilometres. As a private employer the saleyard is very important to their business. This is a $7 million upgrade—the council are putting in $3½ million as well. Casino is the beef capital, Deputy Speaker, as I am sure you are aware. Rockhampton pretend, but Casino is the beef capital. That saleyard upgrade will ensure that Casino maintains its place where it belongs. There is $1 million for Toonumbar Dam in Kyogle, a great dam. I have been out there many times. It is a great tourist facility. It has an unsealed part of the road. It is important for tourism and growth in Kyogle. There is $850,000 for the Ballina Marine Rescue Tower, which is really important. The old one was literally falling over. That is important for the fishing and also for recreational boating in Ballina. There is over $4 million for the cane growers at the Harwood Sugar Mill on the Clarence. Sugar is a very important industry down there. They have great international competitors. This is going to help them with logistics and help them get their product to market a lot cheaper. Also, there is over $2 million for the Lismore Quadrangle project, which includes a regional art gallery, which is much more than an arts centre and which is going to bring a new tourism dollar to Lismore.

I only have 2½ minutes left. I wish I had another 10. I may even ask for an extension if I can get it, because I could keep going.

Wooden bridges is another program that was started. The wooden bridges program was begun under a coalition government in 2013 because we know that those wooden bridges in regional Australia are very important. They are not just important so that people who live there can get over them; they are important because a lot of wealth and a lot of product is produced in regional Australia and we need infrastructure to be able to get it out. I have been delighted, in round 2 of the Bridges Renewal Program and also with some election commitments, to give over $4 million to Kyogle Shire to ensure that they now have about 12 or 13 bridges that will be upgraded under this program. There is one that people have to drive on, so it takes them 20 kilometres more to get to the nearest centre because their wooden bridge has been closed. There are cattle, blueberries—a lot of wealth is coming out of that shire, and it has been delightful to be able to announce assistance for them.

The Roads to Recovery Program I am sure you know well, Deputy Speaker. Roads to Recovery began under John Anderson, who pushed very hard for that. He was the previous leader of the Nationals. He saw that local governments needed help with their local roads. That program began under John Anderson in that portfolio and we have tripled the money to our local governments in the last few years to help them with that program. These are all very important programs for my electorate and, indeed, for regional Australia.

There is more. In the last election campaign there was a focus on infrastructure. I do not want to go off topic, but there are things like Oaks Oval—a big sporting complex in Lismore—and over $1 million for that. There is the Riverside Precinct Plan in Maclean. Maclean is a beautiful part of the world on the Clarence river—the Scottish town of Australia. It is on the Clarence and it is just a beautiful part of the river. We are going to upgrade the riverside precinct there, which is obviously going to bring a lot more tourism dollars there. Woolgoolga is a new part of the electorate for me, and a beautiful part of the world. We are going to give a million dollars to the Woolgoolga Surf Life Saving Club as well, because of the important work that they do. Their old centre needed a bit of upgrading.

Others include in Casino an amphitheatre upgrade. Southern cross lads are going to teach young men and women to drive more safely, because we have had some horrific accidents. There was one where four young gentlemen in our community lost their lives. Unfortunately, I am going to run out of time, but infrastructure continues to abound under the coalition. (Time expired)

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well-planned infrastructure is essential not only to growing the economy but to improving quality of life, as any government should. The way we plan infrastructure needs to focus on addressing regional inequalities and ensuring that everyone, matter where they live, enjoys a decent quality of life.

My electorate sits almost entirely within the heart of the area identified as the Western Sydney Priority Growth Area, which includes the Western Sydney airport. In the Greater Sydney Commission draft South-West District Plan, published last week, the region was forecast to have a population of well over one million by 2036, up from 715,000 this year. These developments will pose significant challenges for the residents in my area now and into the future, which will rely on a balanced approach to infrastructure to address.

In my maiden speech I said that 68 per cent of the workforce in my electorate travel outside the area each day to their place of employment. The impact that the quality of the infrastructure has on my constituents is magnified intensely. We experience average commutes of approximately 1½ hours each day, which eats into time that could otherwise be spent at home or with family. The way that the government treats infrastructure also says something about its commitment to improving the lives of the many Australians living in outer regions, like the one I represent. The consequences of not effectively addressing the infrastructure needs of our growing outer suburbs are magnified such that they are of concern.

Infrastructure and its centrality in lifting the quality of the day-to-day lives of working Australians and their families was well understood by one of my predecessors in Werriwa, Gough Whitlam. While his government is remembered for many other great reforms, to those in my electorate who are old enough it is best remembered for the National Sewerage Program. Prior to that, there was little or no infrastructure of this kind. Most people were getting visits from the pan man or, if you were really lucky, you might have had septic. People thought muddy backyards and outhouses were the best they could ever expect, given their incomes. In 1973 the number of houses without a sewer connection in Western Sydney exceeded 160,000. By 1978 the number had dropped to well below 100,000. Sewerage went from being something available only to the privileged to being a necessity, which was only provided through the leadership of a federal government that understood the infrastructure needs of our suburbs and worked to ensure a better standard of living through all. My household was one of the many beneficiaries.

What this shows is that infrastructure is as much about long-term vision as it is about having a practical understanding of needs now and into the future. My electorate contains a significant number of logistics and distribution hubs, particularly around Prestons, which are set only to expand with the airport and the intermodal across the river from my electorate. These businesses rely on good quality freight access via both road and rail. The need for a more balanced solution is evident here also, but again I find concerns with the government's approach, allocating funds for some road infrastructure projects but little or no rail investment to assist with the congestion on our roads, which is only intensifying.

If infrastructure is not provided, it will vastly impact on my electorate. Not only are these businesses vital employers for the region but they make significant contributions to assisting unemployment in the region. A fortnight ago the member for Chifley and I visited Mission Providence in Miller. Miller is a particularly challenging community with a higher than average unemployment rate. They identified a number of businesses that were opening up each month they were willing to assist local jobseekers to get back into the workforce.

It was wonderful to spend time with Hang, the manager of the Miller office. She is actually one of the success stories of Mission Providence in Miller. She and I have a bit in common: we both went to the same primary and high schools and we live in the same suburb in my electorate, although I did attend the school many years before her. She started at Mission Providence about 12 years ago as a client and then became a volunteer. She has now progressed to be the manager of the jobactive service provider. Her enthusiasm for her clients and their future is infectious. She and her staff are so positive about each of their cases.

I asked each of the case officers the one thing they would ask for to assist people into employment and their resounding response was transport. In other words, the jobs are being made available by local businesses but the transport infrastructure is just not there to support jobseekers in accessing employment, essentially reinforcing a cycle of unemployment. I have heard anecdotally of many cases where case officers have resorted to offering lifts to their clients because bus services do not start until 6 am, the time when they need to start these jobs.

This is a common story across not only Western Sydney but outer suburbs nationally. A report released last week by the Brotherhood of St Laurence said that transport problems are reported to be the biggest barrier to work for young people—almost 25 per cent, and that issue goes to 80 per cent in the 55-plus age group. Young people in my electorate reflect these statistics, struggling to access employment because they do not have either a licence or a car. In metropolitan Sydney no-one's employment prospects should be so negatively impacted by where they live. This region is not about to grow. It is no longer about planning for the future. There are entire suburbs being built right now and it is the government's responsibility to ensure essential services are in place to meet that demand.

Based on what I have seen and heard so far I have cause for concern. Look at the NBN, the biggest infrastructure commitment at this point, as an example. I already have new constituents moving into greenfields developments in Edmondson Park. These developments were advertised as NBN-ready, but people are moving in to discover that their homes lack any fixed connections, and this includes home fixed-line phones not just the internet.

The new suburbs already struggle with amenities as basic as parking. Edmondson Park has a new railway station, where I spent some time during the election campaign. Already there are many complaints about the availability of parking. The station is barely two years old. It has approximately 450 parking spots in a suburb which will house 5,000 residents in the next five years. Also the suburbs of Horningsea Park, Prestons, Casula, Bardia and Ingleburn use this station. The infrastructure is just grossly inadequate.

West Hoxton and Green Valley in my electorate have been waiting for internet connections for at least 10 years. The Western Sydney airport will be a significant project and has been listed as such by Infrastructure Australia. The airport is expected to host 9,000 jobs in less than 12 years, but as yet there are no plans for a heavy rail line into the airport. There must be significant upgrades to roads to stop the gridlock that will occur with this extra traffic.

The government needs to ensure that it is taking a broad view of the infrastructure needs of our suburbs, particularly in Werriwa. It is necessary to have an understanding of what it is to have a decent quality of life, to have access to employment and to have the ability to spend time with your family every day. We also need to be ready for growth when it happens, not be catching up after it. Simply put: services should have capacity for the populations they are designed to serve.

The alternative of not getting this right reduces people living in my area to long queues on roads, long queues at bus stops, overcrowded train stations and trains, and long wait times at the local hospital. Recently it has been reported that 40 per cent of people presenting at Liverpool Hospital are waiting in casualty over four hours. It is critical that the government gets infrastructure right.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is a growing nation, and with that comes a need for improved infrastructure. As the Prime Minister said last week, the coalition knows that building infrastructure means building the nation, and the federal government is meeting Australia's needs head-on and has increased infrastructure expenditure to a record $80 billion to get vital projects underway across the country. That includes $50 billion for transport infrastructure and $30 billion for other infrastructure, like the National Broadband Network, water infrastructure, regional grants programs and other major projects.

In Queensland, the federal government's current commitments towards Queensland's land transport infrastructure through the Infrastructure Investment Program is $11.4 billion from 2013-14 to 2019-20. This includes $2.2 billion in 2016-17. This government has committed $914 million to the Gateway Upgrade North project that will support economic growth, improve accessibility to the Port of Brisbane and Brisbane Airport, and improve safety and travel for motorists for my constituents and for my learned friend here, the member for Brisbane, and his constituents as well.

Outside of Brisbane, the Bruce Highway is our No. 1 priority. So far, the coalition has completed 10 projects out of our 10-year $6.7 billion commitment to upgrade the Bruce Highway. In my electorate of Fisher, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, the federal government to date has committed nearly $1.5 billion to infrastructure investment on projects both large and small, including $1.42 billion on major road projects, $22 million as part of the Roads to Recovery program, $5 million through the Community Development Grants Program and $10 million to the Sunshine Coast Council through the Financial Assistance Grant program.

In September, I was very pleased to represent the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport to announce the long-awaited upgrade of the $929.3 million Caloundra Road to Sunshine Motorway interchange project in my electorate of Fisher. With a booming population, this is a game-changing project and one that will help address one of the worst bottlenecks on the Sunshine Coast. The federal government is contributing 80 per cent of the money for this vital upgrade, which includes widening the highway to three lanes and an innovative new design to the Caloundra Road interchange.

However, the federal government understands that the infrastructure needs of the Sunshine Coast do not end there—far from it. I have consistently spoken in this chamber about the current Bruce Highway Upgrade Planning Study, currently being undertaken between the Sunshine Coast and Pine Rivers Bridge. The Australian government has provided $6.4 million, with $1.4 million coming from the Queensland government. The project will help determine the best way to increase the capacity and alleviate flooding and safety issues along that stretch of the Bruce Highway. This planning study project commenced in mid-2016 and is currently expected to be completed in mid-2018.

While I am pleased this project is underway, surely we can to better than mid-2018. People living on the coast and people travelling to the coast need this project, this planning study, to be done much sooner. I will take this opportunity, once again, to call upon the Queensland transport minister, Mark Bailey, to have this study fast-tracked. This is not a time for politics or point-scoring. Sunshine Coast residents and people travelling to the Sunshine Coast from the 'Bruce car park'—because that is often what it is—need this study done ASAP. Minister Bailey, this is in your total control. I ask that you work with me and my federal colleagues to deliver this planning study by mid-2017.

The Sunshine Coast is also pursuing a commitment to another transport infrastructure project, and that is the duplication of the North Coast rail line. This line is essentially the same as it was when it was built over 100 years ago. The upgrade was promised but never delivered by Queensland Labor governments in the recent past. It was the LNP that finally put in a proposal in 2015 to upgrade the line between Beerburrum and Landsborough to provide more than 150 extra weekly services, improve passenger and freight transport reliability, and create more than 3,000 new jobs during construction.

I am buoyed by the knowledge that the coalition government has an appetite for investing in rail infrastructure projects across the nation. On urban passenger rail projects from 2013-14 to 2018-19, the Australian government is currently scheduled to spend $95 million for the Gold Coast Light Rail Stage 2, $1.7 billion for the Sydney Metro, and $857.2 million for the Melbourne Metro, to name just a few.

There is no doubt that we need to get better at planning and building the infrastructure Australia needs, and to do that we have to work together—all governments, industry, stakeholders, consumers and citizens. Part of this equation is to closely look at some of the costs associated with some of our biggest contracts. It is a sad fact that many contracts are being greatly inflated by the tactics of unions—namely, the CFMEU. This is why, as a builder and a construction lawyer, I am so passionate about the return of the ABCC. I agree with the comments made just yesterday by the CEO of Master Builders Australia, Wilhelm Harnisch, that the return of the ABCC will mean schools, hospitals, roads and other essential community infrastructure will be constructed at significantly lower cost than they are currently. The reintroduction of the ABCC will deliver lasting benefits for the community and savings for taxpayers. Why? Under current industrial relations conditions, Master Builders estimate that construction costs are 30 per cent higher than they should be. However, from my own experience I would suggest that the Master Builders figures are grossly understated. Given my background, many builders and subcontractors have approached me since I became the member for Fisher. Many of their stories are tales of great sadness and great oppression. The evidence that has been presented to me is that the cost blowout on commercial union sites, as opposed to non-union sites, is somewhere between 60 and 100 per cent, rather than the estimated 30 per cent.

Mum-and-dad businesses are suffering because of the intimidation—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 18:02 to 18:22

Mum-and-dad businesses are suffering because of the intimidation and lawlessness of the CFMEU, and those opposite are complicit. Take, for example, the case of Andrew Bourke, who runs a small security and traffic control business for the construction industry. Andrew's business won a job with Grocon, which is one of the few tier 1 building companies whose management has the intestinal fortitude to fight back against the unlawful demands of the CFMEU. Because Grocon do not give in to the unlawful demands of the CFMEU, Andrew's business has been black-banned from every other building site in this country. Andrew is a very brave man. I suggested to him that he should remain anonymous, but he wants his story told. His hope is that the crossbenchers in the Senate will hear his story—an actual story of real people, real mums and dads with real kids going to real schools with real mortgages. The CFMEU shamelessly put the weights on other builders to have Andrew's business kicked off six other building sites, all because Andrew refused to bow to the demands of the CFMEU and continued to work for Grocon. Now, 20 people who worked for Andrew are out of jobs, and the Labor Party pretend to be the party for the worker. What a joke! The ALP is an absolute disgrace in the way that it continues to run a protection racket for the CFMEU. Shame on those building contractors who bowed to the unlawful demands of the CFMEU. Their lack of courage and of willingness to do what is right and stand up against the CFMEU is appalling, and they stand condemned for their appeasement.

Unfortunately, it is not just about building companies that are beholden to the unions. Around noon on Thursday, 8 September 2016, hundreds of CFMEU workers walked off Brisbane city construction sites to protest an industrial dispute in Victoria, and the Queensland state Labor government did nothing to stop them.

Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to the annual infrastructure statement and, in doing so, I want to focus particularly on the severe lack of investment by this government in Western Sydney and the impact it is having on our growing community and our growing economy. This has all come about following the Prime Minister's self-congratulatory diatribe last Thursday that would give a couple of Xanax a run for their money in sending people to sleep. It showed us that this Prime Minister and his Liberal government are completely out of touch with ordinary Australia and do not understand the infrastructure needs of Western Sydney.

In almost all things, Western Sydney is being left behind when it comes to government investment and, yet, governments from all levels are too keen to take from the pockets of Western Sydney families and small businesses week after week without a plan or ability to deliver. I have said it before and I will say it again: Western Sydney deserves nothing less than the attention and the investment given to other major growth areas around the country by the federal government.

First and foremost, we need a jobs plan that secures and encourages stable and meaningful employment and we need a jobs plan that trains and supports young people trying to get a start in life. The lack of this could not be more highlighted in the government's PaTH—which should be called 'PaTHetic'—program for young people and its inability to answer the country's housing affordability crisis.

Too much opportunity has been ripped out of Western Sydney by Liberal governments failing to support young people and failing to invest in retraining workers for the 21st century. Too much opportunity has been squandered by this infrastructure-lazy government that talks big but delivers little. In fact, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out last week, this government repeatedly falls billions of dollars short on its own infrastructure-spending rhetoric. That is billions of dollars worth of promises delayed and neglected and billions of dollars of local benefits not flowing into communities like mine in Lindsay.

So while this government says it is building, the cold hard numbers printed on the pages of their budget prove otherwise. Meanwhile, they continue to rip money out of worthwhile projects that funnel cash into questionable projects without proper analysis being carried out or completed and without proper consultation with affected communities being undertaken.

One major issue of concern in my electorate is the process this government has undertaken around Western Sydney airport, which can only be described as a complete shambles. Last week the Leader of the Opposition labelled the process a mess, and I agree. We still do not know what the flight paths will look like; we still do not know how many flights there will be; we still do not know what transport options will be built; we still do not know what jobs will be created and we still do not know the true impact this airport will have on nearby residential areas, as well as our valuable and local natural habitat and national parks.

I will park here and hover over the jobs plan and the 'tick and flick' this government has undertaken in relation to Western Sydney airport, aka Badgerys Creek. Whilst I acknowledge that during the construction phase there will be jobs generated on this massive infrastructure project, the government has not landed on any semblance of a jobs plan for Western Sydney. The jobs numbers they are quoting for this airport are significantly higher than Mascot employs and when the government is pressed on the kinds of jobs we might get as a result of this airport, we are told retail and car hire. However, this government promised a jobs plan back in May and we have nothing concrete or meaningful, only a few numbers plucked out of the sky.

Yet, with all these unknowns, this government has jumped feet first, ticking and flicking this project, and then has the hide to present it as some sort of revolutionary solution to the issues we see facing Western Sydney when, in fact, it is a perfect example of everything wrong with this government's approach to Western Sydney. No consultation, no long-term solutions, no upfront discussion about pros and cons or noise mitigation plans: just a proclamation made by a Prime Minister from Point Piper and an urban infrastructure minister from the Upper North Shore. I do not believe for a second they have considered what it is we need to build and support our growing community. If they had, they might have reconsidered their second-rate NBN rollout in Western Sydney that is constraining growth and reducing our productivity capacity, affecting thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs in my electorate of Lindsay.

We hear time and time again from those opposite how they consider themselves to be the better financial managers in this country, and yet they have doubled the cost of the NBN while delivering a network that will be half the speed; yet they want us to trust them with a billion-dollar airport build. I use the word 'delivering' very loosely, considering they are hopelessly behind with the rollout of their second-rate NBN, even though they have been in government for more than three years. They promised everyone in Australia would have access to very fast broadband by the end of the year and, with only 32 days left, they have nearly eight million premises to go; not to mention that this government had to look to Ireland to bring in tradespeople who can lay copper infrastructure.

Something that has been pointed out time and time again by me in this place is the health infrastructure that the people of Lindsay sorely need that neither the Liberal government nor state Liberal government have managed to invest in or build in almost four years at the federal level and six years at the state level. Nepean Hospital sorely needs urgent infrastructure investment. That simply has not been a priority for the Liberals. The level of incompetence on display is truly astounding. But as a government their indifference to creating and supporting local jobs is even worse. If they cared about Western Sydney families and if they cared about being a government that creates opportunities through infrastructure, rather than entrenching disadvantage, they would support local workers by guaranteeing Australian apprenticeships will get a go on major infrastructure projects. They would make sure local workers are prioritised— (Time expired)

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time being 6.30, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.