Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is actually quite refreshing and quite a change to hear Senator Payne stand up in here and talk about Western Sydney. This morning we had a South Australian senator, Senator Birmingham, being sent out to run the lines for the coalition. I do not know why Senator Payne was not sent out, but Senator Birmingham was sent out to run the lines for the coalition on Western Sydney. Like Senator Payne, I am also a resident of Western Sydney. I have lived in St Clair, I have lived in St Marys and I have lived in Penrith. So I know Western Sydney well.

I certainly know that the issues that are a problem in Western Sydney are issues that are being assessed and dealt with by this government. They are the issues of transport: the issues of almost 200,000 people in Western Sydney having to exit Western Sydney every day and come back into Western Sydney at night. That is a huge problem. It is the neglect of 11½ years of the Howard government to put infrastructure into Western Sydney. Look at the last election platform of the coalition. What was the election platform for Western Sydney in terms of infrastructure? Zero. Nothing. They did nothing. They were promising nothing in Western Sydney, and so they have got a lot to answer for after 11½ years, when they were profligate.

When the money was flowing into the government, what did they do in Western Sydney? They did nothing in health. They did nothing in education. I have been to Western Sydney schools where the toilets look as if they were built in the 1800s, and that was after 11½ years of the coalition government. I have to say, in terms of transport, what have they done over 11½ years? Nothing. Who has invested in health in Western Sydney? It is the Labor government that has invested in health. If you go to every major hospital you can see the building work that is being done. There is the building work in health and the building work in education.

We are rebuilding the infrastructure in many of our schools by putting in school halls that would never have been built under a coalition government and putting in science labs and language labs that were never thought about under a coalition government.