Bruce Baird (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The New South Wales government have recently announced, with great fanfare, that their unpopular and polluting desalination plant has been shelved indefinitely. While this is great news for the people of Kurnell in the short term, the New South Wales government need to come clean about their future plans for desalination. The Labor government cannot expect shire residents to believe that the project has been shelved indefinitely while they continue with the acquisition of the proposed site and while they continue to spend huge amounts of money on building a test plant for Kurnell.

The New South Wales government seem to be trying to neutralise their deeply unpopular desalination plant to make sure they retain government at the next election, due in just 12 months time. Despite announcing they have shelved desalination, the New South Wales Labor government will spend $120 million of our money to complete infrastructure for a desalination plant they claim will not be built. Given the chronic underspending on things that matter to shire residents, surely this further $120 million would be better spent on more police to keep the shire safe, on more doctors and nurses for Sutherland Hospital and on better roads and cleaner, safer trains to service the Sutherland Shire.