Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. How will the government's infrastructure investment plans help commuters travelling from Sydney's west to the city and how will they help move freight more quickly into Port Botany? How do these plans compare to other proposals?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chifley for his question. Indeed, I was with the member for Chifley and other Western Sydney members with the Prime Minister last week when we announced our commitment to help build the M5 and M4 extensions. We want to work with the New South Wales government to achieve real improvements to Sydney's motorways. The current New South Wales proposal has a number of weaknesses in it, and we are insisting that they be fixed. That is the way you do good infrastructure development: get your business plan in place first and then get your funding commitments made.

The three commitments that we have made are these: (1) that the M4 has to take people into the city, (2) that the M5 has to take freight to the port and (3) that you cannot have new tolls on old roads.

Mr Robb interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein is warned!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a common-sense position that people in Western Sydney understand. That is why we have contributed $25 million, announced in last year's budget, to enable the business case to be developed: because it is very clear that we need to get the planning in the project right first time, in order to ensure there is proper use of taxpayers' funds.

Premier O'Farrell has a bit more work to do. First he said the city connection would go to Camperdown. Next he said, in an op-ed in today's Daily Telegraph, that the city connection would go only as far as Petersham. Next week it might be Ashfield. One thing I do know is that Camperdown and Petersham are not in the city. I do know that taking a freight connection to the side of Sydney airport closest to St Peters does not get freight to the port. King Street, Newtown, is not a thoroughfare; it is a roadblock. Unless we get this right the first time, it will simply fail.

I notice that the Liberal candidate for Lindsay took out a full-page ad last week—

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will not—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

saying that the M4 East Extension will complete the missing link between Western Sydney and the city. She quotes the Leader of the Opposition supporting our policy. And yet, last week when asked whether it was a condition, he was not sure: it was; it was not; it was; it was not. He needs to come clean to the people of Western Sydney. They cannot have it both ways. You cannot have Premier O'Farrell saying, 'We're going to build a road to Petersham with federal money,' and have this Leader of the Opposition pretending that this road is going to take people into the city. He indeed has described his own commitment, which he has made in these advertisements, as being an impossible condition for federal funds. (Time expired)