Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Parramatta needs a pool. It had one: a great pool. The state government ripped it out of the ground, and it's desperately in need of one. It's one of the fastest growing regions in Australia that suffers heat 15 to 20 degrees above that in suburbs near the harbour. We desperately need a pool. Yet, when the government gave away $100 million on pools just before the election, Parramatta didn't get one. Now, for a start, Parramatta didn't apply because the government didn't announce that the program was open, nor did it release any guidelines, so Parramatta didn't know that the funding was available. Secondly, even if it had known, it probably wouldn't have applied because the funding was for regional areas. But that didn't seem to have any bearing on who got the funding. It was who you knew and where you were that determined whether you got funding. North Sydney pool, on Sydney Harbour, got $10 million in a regional fund which hadn't even been announced or opened—$10 million! The Kogarah war memorial pool, in the northern part of the Prime Minister's safe electorate of Cook, received $5 million, even though the council hadn't asked for it. That didn't prevent the pool from closing a couple of months later because of leaks—$5 million for a pool for a council that didn't even ask for it. What a rort! Parramatta should have got a pool. It's outrageous.