House debates

Thursday, 17 March 2016

Constituency Statements

Hume Electorate: Infrastructure

9:39 am

Photo of Angus TaylorAngus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

This time last Friday, I was admiring the Jersey cows at the famous Camden Show, now in its 130th year. The show is still true to the nation-defining origins of the region, and I commend show President Hugh Southwell, and his committee on another absolutely outstanding year.

Camden is set to join the Hume electorate, and I am very excited to have the opportunity to represent this historic part of New South Wales and its rapidly growing population. The Camden region is on the brink of a jobs explosion; it is front and centre of the federal government's 10-year Western Sydney Infrastructure Plan. Already more than 300 jobs have been created as part of the first road projects in my electorate and beyond. The federal government is spending not millions but billions of dollars building this massive road network to support development around and near to Badgerys Creek. Rail will come on top of this, and I was delighted to hear the Prime Minister express a keen interest in looking into fast rail links into and around the region.

One road improvement already underway is the 5.7-kilometre upgrade of the Bringelly Road. $1.6 billion will upgrade 30 kilometres of The Northern Road to four lanes from Narellan to the M4. $1.25 billion will build a 14-kilometre motorway from the M7 to The Northern Road. And of huge importance to the Narellan, Mount Annan and Camden areas is the $114 million Narellan Road upgrade. Jointly funded by federal and state governments, it will widen the road to six lanes, remove two serious bottlenecks and install traffic lights to improve peak-hour traffic flows. In total this is a $2.9 billion infrastructure commitment from the Commonwealth to the northern part of the Hume electorate and surrounding electorates. The scale is incredible.

Only the Turnbull government can deliver these big projects. We will approach federal infrastructure investment with a clear aim to maximise returns to taxpayers. Labor simply does not understand how to do this. During construction alone the second airport will create 11,000 jobs for western and south-western Sydney, spilling across into Hume. On completion there will be 9,000 direct on-site jobs by 2031 and a further 7,000 indirect jobs in surrounding areas. we forecast that 61,000 direct on-site jobs will have been created by 2063, and that does not include other businesses being attracted into the area.

At the moment, many residents around Camden, Narellan, Picton, Bargo and the Southern Highlands are travelling long distances to work. The great news is that this will provide ongoing employment closer to where people live. It is a privilege to work with local communities and state and local government colleagues on this exciting stage of the region's development.