House debates

Monday, 13 February 2017

Statements by Members

Western Sydney Airport

4:13 pm

Photo of Emma HusarEmma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise once again to draw attention to the complete disregard that this government is showing my community through its plans to build the Western Sydney Airport. This is an airport that has been in the public sphere for decades, and my community have made it perfectly clear to anyone interested in listening that they support the airport, but only if it operates with the same curfew conditions given to the eastern suburbs, only if there is an operational train line from day one to stop our roads being further clogged, and only if our local community benefits from the jobs that this airport claims it will create.

These are entirely reasonable expectations from a community, and they have been put to successive governments time and time again. It should come as no surprise that these are conditions that a large majority of my community have based their support for the airport on. It is an absolute affront to the people of Lindsay for this government to completely ignore these community expectations and then seek to ram down our throats an airport that the minister himself and the Prime Minister would never consider for their own communities, while this arrogant Liberal government continues to wage a dishonest and deliberately misleading campaign about this airport and who it does and does not support.

Now is the time to make sure that the final product fits within my community's expectations. That is my job, and I will not sit idly by while my constituents are sold a pup. I call on the government to listen to my community and to be fair to my constituents, instead of asking Western Sydney to yet again suck it up and cop what the eastern suburbs would not.