House debates

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

Constituency Statements

Mitchell Electorate: Infrastructure

9:33 am

Photo of Alex HawkeAlex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

This Saturday on 28 March residents in western Sydney and Sydney will have the opportunity to re-elect the Baird Liberal government, a government which is delivering infrastructure for western and north-western Sydney. If you live in north-western Sydney, you know that the North West Rail Link project, with one of the biggest rail tunnels in the Southern Hemisphere, is underway and is being constructed on time and under budget—that is, ahead of schedule and under budget. A state government that is inherently competent at delivering major infrastructure projects deserves to be re-elected.

But it is not just the infrastructure that is already underway on the ground at the moment; it is also the plan that Mike Baird and the Liberal team have for New South Wales and western Sydney for the next few years. My electorate, which has been Sydney's biggest growth corridor over the last decade, will receive a fully funded public hospital at Rouse Hill. There is no government, there is no administration, that will build a fully funded public hospital at Rouse Hill except for the Baird Liberal government. If it is not done in this generation it will never be done, because there will be no money and there will be no capacity to build it. So there is much at stake for people in Rouse Hill and western Sydney.

In Seven Hills, the critical new electorate that is coming up where Mark Taylor is running, you will see infrastructure such as the WestConnex program funded by the federal government in addition to the state government's significant contribution. It is a road and rail plan for Sydney that will unlock the productivity and infrastructure capacity that our city needs. We all know that Sydney was not started with a plan, it was never built to a plan and that in terms of infrastructure it has always suffered. But a Mike Baird Liberal government and the plan that it has put forward will ensure that we are able to unlock that productivity and infrastructure capacity to ensure this city's future. That includes WestConnex, the light rail program from Parramatta. All of the plans that the Baird Liberal government has are not just plans. It is not just a government that is promising things; it has already proven in the first four years of this administration that it does deliver those infrastructure projects. Not only are they projects that get started and delivered but they are delivered ahead of schedule and under budget. That is something that people in New South Wales never thought was possible from a state government. They could never believe a state government would deliver a project ahead of schedule and under budget. Yet one of the biggest rail tunnels in the Southern Hemisphere is being delivered ahead of schedule and under budget.

The people in Sydney and western Sydney face perhaps the most important choice this Saturday of their generation—that is, great-scale public schools, and there is a public school proposed for Bella Vista in my electorate, which will never be built unless this government is elected; and a public hospital at Rouse Hill, which will never be built unless this government is re-elected on Saturday. There is so much at stake for our state and for our future and the Baird Liberal government's plans for the whole state are fully funded, deliverable and will be delivered if this government is re-elected on Saturday.