Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday, Western Sydney motorists, unbelievably, had to confront the reimposition of tolls on the M4—a road they paid off back in 2010. They're paying $50 a week now on tolls. These tolls will hang around. I'll be a 90-year-old before the tolls go. It is phenomenal that yet again they're forced to pay for this road. Western Sydney residents are the most tolled residents in the country and some say the world. When you look at the per-kilometre tolling of roads in Sydney and compare it to other parts of the world, it's likely that we are the most tolled people, not only in a city but on the planet. Western Sydney residents are being punished. They are forced to move out to the urban fringe because that's where land is the cheapest and then they're punished, if they dare try to travel from the west to the east, with these tolls.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a tax. Residents in my areas pay nearly $10,000 a year in tolls. This is a tax on them. A state Liberal government has done this, aided and abetted by the federal Liberal government. The money for WestConnex did not have a condition, like federal Labor imposed, to say, 'Do not put tolls back on the M4.' The federal Liberals handed $1.5 billion over to the state government. They did that straightaway. Look at the companies that are benefitting from this. Transurban had an 850 per cent leap in profit last week. Their share price went down because investors thought they weren't fleecing enough out of Western Sydney residents. Transurban's hunger for profit knows no bounds. These people are tollway ticks. They will keep feeding off Western Sydney residents and they will not reinvest back into the network or deliver better services. They keep feeding off this. This is simply wrong.

Three things need to happen. The first is that Transurban should not get access to WestConnex. They have had enough. That's the first thing. The second is that IPART, the independent pricing watchdog, should be given oversight of pricing and the way in which the pricing on toll roads in Sydney is managed. Luke Foley, the opposition leader, was right in saying that the toll should not be sold off before the next election. The third thing that should happen is that the government should start investigating a new model for toll road management that will allow the profits to be reinvested into either maintenance or expansion of roads. I get it that road building is expensive, but you cannot tell me that we do not have the wit or wherewithal to come up with a system that does not see all this being privatised and all the profit going to private investors. It's all coming out of the pockets of Western Sydney motorists.