John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Prior to my election as the member for Bennelong I travelled across the 58 square kilometres, knocking on more than 9,000 doors and meeting with as many Bennelong residents as possible. Throughout this period I had one simple message, 'I am here to listen, to listen some more and then to listen again.' While the title after my name may have changed, my core responsibility to the electorate has not. Over the past 2½ years I have continued to visit homes, shops, schools and community gatherings across Bennelong, and I am still listening. The difference now is that I am able to use my parliamentary position to discuss the matters of concern to local residents with my parliamentary colleagues and local, state, business and community representatives. Recently I wrote about this to the local community and I listed a range of issues on which I have extended the listening campaign to include serving and delivering for Bennelong residents.

Bennelong became famous in the 1990s as the home of the 'Bennelong funnel' created by aircraft descending into Sydney Airport all lining up above the same houses in East Ryde, Marsfield and Gladesville. Through my role on the Sydney Airport Community Forum, I have reinforced the commitment to the principles of noise sharing and have had noise-monitoring terminals installed in two different locations to provide solid data on the noise levels endured by Bennelong residents. I also identified and stopped Airservices Australia testing of a new flight path system, which was to occur without the required consultation with the local community.

Traffic congestion is the biggest threat to the quality of life for residents and productivity for businesses in the local region, with Bennelong home to five of the top 10 most congested roads in New South Wales. To address this, I formed and chair a committee that partners with the New South Wales government to develop policies to reduce the suffocation of our major cities. This committee met again just several hours ago and is determined to support genuine long-term planning for a sustainable reduction in local traffic congestion. Of course, this should be strongly supported by improved public transport and road infrastructure. Unfortunately New South Wales suffers from a massive infrastructure deficit after 16 years of broken promises under the previous Labor state government.

The North West Rail Link, which would have taken thousands of cars off Bennelong roads, first announced at a cost of $360 million in 1998, must now finally be built by the new state coalition government, yet the rapid increase in property values has put the construction cost over $8.5 billion, leaving little money for anything else.

The Chatswood to Parramatta rail link was also announced in 1998 at a cost of $1 billion. Half of it did get built by Labor for the princely sum of $2.4 billion. The construction of the remaining link, which would help those in the western suburbs of Sydney access the booming centre of Macquarie Business Park and Macquarie University, was announced as an iron-clad promise by Prime Minister Gillard at the last election for yet another $2.1 billion. Yet, just like so many Labor leaders before her, it is clear for all to see that not a penny has been spent, not a sod of soil has been turned. It appears, Prime Minister, the people of Bennelong never actually believed that you would keep this promise.

Other local initiatives have included the Bennelong Table Tennis Schools Program, which has put table tennis tables in every school in the region in order to promote cultural integration and a healthy activity for students; the Bennelong Village Businesses Campaign, which encourages residents to support their local small businesses; and, ongoing work on improving the access to quality and affordable health care. All these policy initiatives will need to be based on one simple truth: that this country needs a strong economy, where debt is reduced, budgets are balanced and government acts more like a regular household striving to live within their means. Through these strong economic foundations, to be built by a future coalition government, the Bennelong community will prosper and I will continue to honour my pledge to keep on listening, serving and delivering for the local community.