Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last year, the Prime Minister announced a City Deal for Western Sydney in Redfern. Bravo! Forty kilometres away from the deep heart of the region! If it was not bad enough that they could not get the geography or politics right, the person left to fill in the details, assistant minister for cities Angus Taylor, completely cut Blacktown City Council out of the Western Sydney City Deal. Did he forget which councils are actually in Western Sydney?

In May, the government announced incentives for eight Western Sydney councils to fast-track development application approvals as part of the City Deal, but excluded Blacktown council, the largest council in New South Wales. He says he wants 185,000 extra homes approved in Western Sydney over 20 years. Well, Blacktown council approves roughly 15,000 DAs a year, or 300,000 over 20 years. Leaving Blacktown out of the City Deal puts a blackhole in the middle of whatever infrastructure plans are developed, making the overall deal compromised. One hundred and fifty thousand people are expected to move into the north-west growth centre. Blacktown council is playing a role in planning issues affecting those residents.

Politics has polluted the Western Sydney City Deal. The Turnbull government is not serious about good outcomes, just a small safe deal attracting cheap headlines. Any fair dinkum Western Sydney City Deal would have the largest council in Western Sydney smack in the centre of the deal. That is why the Turnbull government's Western Sydney City Deal, like the government overall, is all show, no go.