Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I take the interjection of the minister, who says, 'They're still jobs.' Yes, they are, but they're not jobs for the entire region; they are jobs that will be located largely in one part of Western Sydney. Western Sydney itself, growing at the pace that it is, is way bigger than many of those on the other side even understand or appreciate. I certainly wouldn't expect this minister to appreciate Western Sydney in any great detail whatsoever, other than it being a great talking point for a media release. The reality is this: instead of saying that the lion's share of jobs will be created in our area, all they can get is a 50 per cent target for job creation out of that airport. The bulk of the jobs won't even go to Western Sydney; 50 per cent of the jobs will be going to people outside the region. Can we land—pardon the unintended pun—on an actual jobs figure? The figure bounces around: is it 20,000 or 40,000? If it's 40,000 then 20,000 jobs will be created at this airport. That's it.

This bill is supposed to promote community dialogue and consultation, but this airport still hasn't released the actual flight paths. The minister might want to let us know when the flight paths for this airport are going to be released. This bill says they'll provide greater community consultation, and they can't tell you where the planes will fly. I've heard about a pub with no beer, but never an airport with no planes. They keep talking about all the jobs that this airport will create, but they can only do a 50 per cent job target, and they never tell you the actual flight paths.

Here's the big tip: I bet you any money we won't find the flight paths before an election, will we? No, not at all. They are ramping up the construction and making all the announcements, but they won't properly commit to the maximum number of jobs for Western Sydney and they don't have the guts to tell you where those planes will fly. This is scandalous: $10 billion of public funds are being spent on this airport—roughly $3½ billion on the road network around it then the $5 billion now being assumed by the Commonwealth for driving it—and they won't tell you the flight paths. They'll get so much of this thing built that, when the communities find out how they are affected, it'll be too late. It is the most cynical way to design, implement and manage a project of this size.

This bill, by the way, was introduced in December 2016, and gets debated now, nearly two years later. We are told that the whole master plan concept will improve the way in which they'll consult with and bring people along with them on these developments, right? Rubbish! You can look at current experience: the community is not being treated with any respect on a major development right now. This is all about clamouring to an inner-city and Eastern Suburbs approach to what happens in Western Sydney.

Western Sydney is growing at such a pace. In my part of Western Sydney 150,000 people are moving in. The motorways and trains are crammed. The public hospital infrastructure doesn't keep pace with growth in our area. Hospital waiting lists for surgeries and emergency departments are crammed full. It's not keeping pace with development. The schools on the most backlogged maintenance lists in the state are located in Western Sydney, and we are not developing them. Funds are being cut from universities and from TAFEs.

In my part of Western Sydney 150,000 people are moving in, with another 300,000 moving into the south-west of Sydney, and the answer that is being advocated to fix clogged roads and rail, hospitals that are falling apart or not keeping pace with growth, and schools that don't get the proper funding is to put $10 billion into an airport. If I had ever said to a Western Sydney resident that the solution to all that is to spend $10 billion of public funds to build an airport, and to cynically do it in a way where the full impact of that development is not explained to the public, people would think you had rocks in your head. The reality is: that's exactly what is happening right now, where $10 billion is being put into one project.

That's before we even get to the expenditure on the North South Rail Line connecting the airport into Western Sydney or a western rail line from Penrith, where the member for Lindsay represents, through to the city. We're going to connect up all these people from that airport onto a congested Western Line. I would love for coalition ministers to go out to railway stations in Western Sydney and see rows five deep of people waiting to get on a train. Mr Deputy Speaker Andrews, I'm sure you would see in Melbourne as well that people want to support public transport, and it is so patronised that trains are packed. I see it when I stand at the stations at Rooty Hill, Doonside and especially Mount Druitt. I think to myself, 'Those people are getting on trains where people from Penrith, Werrington, St Marys were then joined by people in Mount Druitt, Rooty Hill, Doonside before getting to the next major railway station of Blacktown.' They will stand the whole way—for over an hour, in the case of the member for Lindsay's constituents. Then, on top of that, we will connect patrons from the North South Rail Line without thinking if we've cleared the congestion on the Western Line, which the state government knows is a problem as well. None of that consultation takes place, but this bill that we're debating now should fix up a master plan just for an airport—one airport that's being put in there. It is wrong; people are right and they should be getting sick to their back teeth of it.

The other big thing is the M7 motorway that's supposed to connect up. Mind you, no-one ever thought for a moment that, instead of building a North South Rail Line, they could use the easement on the M7, which is vacant right now. They could put in busways, a scalable response to meeting transport needs. They could convert those easements that are there—Transurban knows they are there; the government knows they are there—into bus lanes that would allow for buses to ferry people north-south. We're going to build a rail line, but we never thought of using an alternative. That will be wasted.

The M7 is already getting congested. I commend the then Howard government on working with the state government to make that reality—it is a great roadway—but it is already starting to get congested because of growth in Western Sydney. We haven't even thought about the next big roadway, the M9, which has to run parallel to the M7. Where's the funding going to come from for that? When you put $10 billion into one federal project and then ask for more, it's very hard to do it because other states—and I notice the member for Holt is here and that the deputy speaker is from Melbourne—get a little bit itchy when you take $10 billion for one project and then want to ask for more.

This is the dilemma that we have in Western Sydney. We know that all these other projects that need vital infrastructure support will now be competing not only against one big project but also against the other states and territories. We have 500,000-plus people moving into the region. The western part of Sydney will soon dwarf the eastern part in population numbers, but none of the decisions for Western Sydney actually get driven by Western Sydney people; it's all in the east. There are deals that could help parts of our area—these much-vaunted city deals that get announced—but the biggest council in Western Sydney does not have a city deal. Why? It is because it had the temerity to disagree with the federal government about the airport and so it has been blacklisted and not included as part of the city deal announcement. All these other councils get to go in, but the biggest council is left off it. Why? As I said, it is because it dared have an opposing view to this government. The biggest council with the largest population sector and the largest amount of development occurring is left off and not provided funding. It will get no federal funds to think in the long-term about how to do development in a way that will support growth in that part of Western Sydney. Again, eastern Sydney people—or people outside of Western Sydney—are calling the shots on what's happening. When we get this bill through, do you reckon I have any faith whatsoever that it'll actually deliver what it promises, which is supposedly better consultation? No, because I've seen what 'consultation' is; consultation is eastern and northern Sydney people calling the shots, as it has always been.

As I often say when it comes to Western Sydney, 'The things we need, we never get; the stuff we never ask for gets forced on us.' This bill is just a facade to support more of that behaviour, because, if Western Sydney started jacking up through the master plans and all the stuff that goes on that masks itself as consultation, we'd be ignored. No-one ever asked for this airport in our part of Western Sydney. They wanted serious jobs and serious infrastructure to deal with the things that we know are going to be long-term problems. But it will be too late. I'm happy to be proven wrong. If all my concerns about this airport turn out to be wrong, I'm happy to wear egg on my face. If I am right, I'll be interested to see if the people who argued for this airport will still be here. No, they will not, and we will have spent $10 billion on a facility and all the other infrastructure needs will have been neglected and people will have been left to suffer crowded roadways and crowded public transport, hospitals that don't meet their needs and schools that aren't being invested in.

So, yes, good luck with this bill genuinely tapping into community sentiment. I very much doubt it will. Like much of the stuff this government does, it's all facade and no form.

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