Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My electorate of Lindsay is one of great diversity, both urban and regional. We are a place where the country meets the city, the river meets the plains and the mountains—the beautiful Blue Mountains—sit as the backdrop. The region of Lindsay, for a long time, has been one of great agricultural heritage. Suburbs like Mulgoa, Agnes Banks, Llandilo and Londonderry still bear much of these roots today—and, of course, Castlereagh, one of Governor Macquarie's original Macquarie towns.

We also have a long history in the equine industry. Our heritage stems back more than a century with Grand Flaneur, winner of the 1880 Melbourne Cup, being raised at Fernhill in Mulgoa.

Today we are still home to Bart Cummings's stable, where former Melbourne Cup champions like Saintly still call the region home. We are also seeing a revolution in our farming flats and our turf farms, one by one changing into the hands of some of the world's best thoroughbred studs. One of those is Darley Australia, part of Godolphin in Agnes Banks, set up by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and the highest outfit of its type in the Southern Hemisphere.

Last week I visited Darley. It is an incredibly impressive facility, employing in the vicinity of 80 people, be it full time or part time, with many more supplementary jobs and with economic activity coming from this facility. Alongside Coolmore, these organisations produce 50 per cent of Australia's thoroughbred stallions. Darley Australia itself owns half of the country's top 10 sires, and more than 150 companies perform significant business with it.

Racing is the third most attended sport in our country. It employs 250,000 people nationally and is worth $15 billion to the economy. Darley are one of our great success stories, but they are becoming increasingly frustrated by mining operations constantly reapplying for licences near their valuable horse operations in the Hunter and, in particular, that of their breeding stock. In particular, there is Anglo American's Drayton South project. After their mine was blocked by the New South Wales Planning Assessment Commission last year, there is now a proposal for a condensed mine in the same area.

I fully appreciate that the mine proposal is being dealt with at a state level. However, without certainty in the Hunter, it places massive stresses on the operation in Lindsay and the jobs and economic prosperity the operation provides to the region. There is a direct flow-on effect here, and that has the potential to affect employment and growth right across my region and Western Sydney. In Western Sydney alone, the industry employs 5,633 people, 80 of whom are working at Darley directly, but there are many secondary employers, from vets, feed companies, landscapers and curators to people looking after the farming and machinery and maintaining the three tracks they run down at Agnes Banks. In fact, the industry in Western Sydney adds $321.9 million to the economy every single year. Western Sydney produces 76 race meets and 392 races on the latest figures, with 237,411 racegoers each and every year.

The point is that this is a vibrant and self-sustaining industry and an industry that is integrated and reliant on all these key regions working together and supporting each other. To quote Henry Plumptre, Managing Director of Darley Australia: 'Western Sydney has a large number of facilities that meet the spelling and pre-training requirements of nearly all major Sydney racing stables.' He continues: 'To illustrate the integrated nature of the industry across New South Wales, Sydney now has a vibrant and sought-after racing industry which attracts both domestic and international investment. The championships held around Easter each year are not just seen by the government as Sydney's answer to the Melbourne Cup but a massive boost for tourism. All aspects of the industry are co-dependent on each other.'

I do not want to get into the politics tonight of the Drayton South mining project, but I do want to point out the fallout of this project that we are seeing. (Time expired)