Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My electorate is home to a sun-swept coastline of known and unknown natural beauty. It is also home to some of New South Wales's worst traffic. Three of the 10 most congested roads in New South Wales are either on the northern beachers of Sydney or feed into the northern beaches of Sydney. It is a place of lifters, not leaners. In 2014-15, my constituents paid net tax of $1.9 billion. The average electorate pays $1.3 billion in tax. My electorate pays 46 per cent more tax than the average. We give so much, and we ask for so little.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

You will enjoy this next paragraph, Member for Grayndler. The New South Wales government is currently building $75 billion of infrastructure projects and has announced $120 billion more. This is vital investment, required after 16 years of Labor neglect, corruption and incompetence under Bob Carr; Morris lemma; Nathan Rees; my favourite Sky interviewer, Kristina Keneally; and, of course, those saints of the Labor Party in New South Wales and de facto premiers, Eddie Obeid, Ian Macdonald and Joe Tripodi, when nothing happened.

The member for Grayndler, who was warned by the Deputy Speaker to be orderly—go gently on him, Deputy Speaker Hastie—cannot get a word in downstairs, so he comes up here out of a sense of frustration.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

He is trying to give the people—we have almost forgotten what he sounds like, so it is good. In my electorate, where five years ago it took 30 minutes to travel to the CBD it can now take over an hour. The lost productivity through this traffic congestion is $9 billion per year and rising. One project which will ease traffic congestion on the northern beaches is a metro from Chatswood to Frenchs Forest. It would take cars off the road, put families around dinner tables rather than in traffic jams and markedly improve the quality of life of not only my constituents but people right across Sydney.

I am proud that the Turnbull government is committed to playing its part in investment in vital infrastructure in New South Wales and right around Australia. The Australian government will invest $10 billion over the next decade for the national rail passenger program—

Mr Albanese interjecting—

which will fund transformational rail projects, Member for Grayndler—transformational, something the Labor Party has never been able to do—

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