Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like many of us, I get media releases from Senator Mathias Cormann extolling what government work is being done and what's being financed. I have a few remarkable observations. I still can't believe we have a Minister for Finance who can't do numbers, but that's your choice, not ours. We had a media release issued by Mathias Cormann that listed Mathias Cormann first, then the Prime Minister, then the Deputy Prime Minister and then the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It's pretty good that the finance minister gets top billing on a media release that involves the Prime Minister, talking about the Western Sydney International Airport Experience Centre.

This airport is a $10 billion project. It was announced last week that a centre was being set up that would feature interactive digital videos that talk about the history of the region and the importance of the airport. When this was being talked up in the media, it talked about augmented reality being used in the airport. And that would be handy, because the media release talks about how this centre will provide an opportunity for the people of Western Sydney to see firsthand the transformation underway and what the terminal and the runway will look like. This is all fantastic—on a project that was announced five years ago, that is costing $10 billion, we may, through augmented reality, get the opportunity to see how the terminal looks and how the runway looks, but we've got no idea of a flight plan.

It has been five years since this government announced that it would break its own election commitment—it said it had no plans for this airport and then it found the airport and put it in place—and it won't tell the people of the fastest growing region in the country where the planes will fly. It's an airport with no planes. It is an amazing thing that's being achieved. Yet, in the same week as we got this frivolous announcement about this experience centre and all the digital goodies that will go with it, the government announced a multimillion dollar contract with Lendlease to build a terminal. It's going to take until 2021 to find out where the planes fly, but we're getting front-loaded with all this expenditure—$10 billion of it—and we're seeing things steadily being put on that site, and there's a reason for it. It's going to get to a point where the government has spent so much money on this site, then it will release the flight plans and it will be too late to do anything about it. The way the government has treated the people of Western Sydney in respect of this airport is an absolute disgrace. It keeps telling us about the jobs. This is a big airport when it comes to jobs, yet only 50 per cent will be dedicated to Western Sydney. But it's a small airport when it comes to impact, because we've got no ideas of the flight plans. It goes to show you how cynical the government is in respect of this airport, and the people of Western Sydney will find out.

The other thing that gets me going is that we have all this money being spent in Western Sydney, but ordinary needs are going begging. For example, in our part of Western Sydney people can't access train services at their local train station. By that I mean the disabled and the elderly cannot access train stations provided by the New South Wales government. I had to go to the extent of encouraging people to file complaints with the Australian Human Rights Commission because lifts won't be installed at their local railway station. Disabled people have written and told me it's an extra 90-minute round journey because they can't use their local railway station. Why is it that we have to go to a human rights commission to take action against one level of government because it's not following the laws of the federal government when it comes to disability discrimination? It's not right at all. We had to find out under freedom of information how the government in New South Wales prioritises the installation of equipment like lifts. Doonside, which is much higher on the priority list, does not get its lift installed. Its disabled and elderly can't access public transport, yet stations in other electorates, which just happen to be Liberal electorates, with much lower needs get lifts.

I have had an outstanding response from the community, with people as old as 70 and 80 wanting to put in complaints to the Human Rights Commission. I've had people with a disability saying they want to take part. We're going to do a special day where we get people from the community to, en masse, put in these complaints. In this day and age, they should not have to tolerate long ramps that prevent them accessing public transport. We are told we need use public transport more, yet it's been made harder to actually achieve.