Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

  (a) that western Sydney is home to two million people, which is nearly 10 per cent of Australia's population and Australia's third largest economy;

  (b) that western Sydney's population is expected to grow by an additional one million people in the next 20 years while the population in the corridor between Parramatta and Sydney is expected to grow by 420,000;

  (c) that more than 300,000 new jobs are expected to be created in the same period and that traffic congestion is expected to cost Sydney nearly $15 billion by 2031;

  (d) that Parramatta is western Sydney's Central Business District (CBD) and is Sydney's second CBD;

  (e) the benefit of the proposed Sydney Metro West project to connect Parramatta and Sydney via the Bays Precinct and Sydney Olympic Park; and

  (f) that the project, when operational, is expected to slash travel times between the two CBDs to just 20 minutes (on trains running every two minutes) and reduce traffic congestion;

(2) recognises the NSW Government's commitment of $6.4 billion in funding to the project and additional commitment to fast-track the project to begin construction in 2020;

(3) further notes that Federal Labor committed to $3 billion funding to the project prior to the 2019 federal election; and

(4) calls on the Federal Government to urgently allocate the funding that will ensure the project can begin construction in the fast-tracked timeframe.

I want to talk about the lost and wasted hours in traffic congestion; lack of parking at train stations that causes people to leave home as much as an hour earlier than they otherwise would in order to park, losing an extra hour with family at the end of each day and putting extra pressure on partners taking care of school drop-off and collection; and reorganising your time around traffic—joining a gym in the city rather than a local one so that you can travel early and avoid the traffic, but losing the opportunity to build local community relationships and spend time with family.

Traffic is expensive. It's estimated to cost Sydney nearly $15 billion by 2031, but the real cost is to families and communities. People spend wasted hours in transit instead of with family and friends, sitting in a car instead of building relationships that sustain family and community. There's a good part of the solution in front of us right now, and that is the proposed Metro West—a new metro line that will connect Parramatta and Sydney via the Bays Precinct and Sydney Olympic Park. When operational, Metro West is expected to slash travel times to just 20 minutes, and trains will run every two minutes, easing travel times for communities and reducing traffic congestion.

This project is urgent. I rise today to urge the federal government to allocate funding to fast-track the Metro West project. Federal Labor made a commitment prior to the election, and I ask the federal government to do the same. People in Parramatta and further west spend far too much time in transit to work. Road tolls, including those on the new WestConnex, are a real burden and are contracted to rise four per cent per year for decades to come. This is a community-changing project for now and the future. The problem is already dire, which is why Infrastructure Australia identified Sydney Metro West as a high-priority initiative with a medium-term timescale of five to 10 years. It was added to the priority list in 2016.

Let's look at what we have now. We have the T1 western line, which is the main rail line from Penrith to Central via Parramatta. The line is more than a century old. It's already crowded well beyond the benchmark at peak hour. The benchmark for overcrowding, strangely, is 135 per cent. That means 100 per cent of seats are filled and no-one is standing. But the latest data from March 2016 shows that when the 8.05 train from Schofields reaches Westmead it's at 150 per cent capacity—well over the 135 per cent target. It drops slightly at Parramatta as people get off for the CBD, but it is at 161 per cent at Strathfield and 172 per cent at Redfern—well above the 135 per cent target. Punctuality is down—from 93.1 per cent in January to 88.5 per cent in June, just over six months. As bad as the overcrowding is now, patronage is increasing in line with growth.

The 2015 Australian Infrastructure Audit projected that passenger demand on the existing T1 line would increase by about 50 per cent between now and 2031, and it's already happening. For the morning rush at Parramatta Station, the population is expected to grow by an additional one million people in the next 20 years, and, in the Metro West corridor, it's expected to grow by 420,000. There'll be more than 300,000 new jobs in that corridor between now and 2036, so it's incredibly important.

The Morrison government has not committed to this extra funding. The New South Wales Treasurer has publicly stated that he'll ask the federal government for additional funding. Our office has written a letter to Minister McCormack asking for the Morrison government's commitment, but we are yet to receive a response. This is one of the most important projects in our region, supported—in fact, conceived—by a Liberal state government. I strongly urge the federal government to get behind it sooner rather than later. As I said, this is not just a matter of public transport; it's a project which allows families and communities to spend more time together doing the things that matter. Every hour that a person spends sitting in a car, when they could be at home, costs families, costs children and costs the community, in the long run, far more than the lost productivity. It costs us in social cohesion and strong families.

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