Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently Botany pool, located in our community, again closed for the winter months and will not open again until early October. Local families who want their kids to continue swimming lessons during the winter months are forced to go elsewhere. With every single swimming school in our community packed to the rafters, kids will miss out. There are not the available spaces for the kids who have to leave Botany pool because it closes during the winter months. Locals around the Botany area who want to keep fit swimming and doing aqua-aerobics and the like during the winter months also miss out.

The days of Botany, Mascot, Pagewood, Banksmeadow and Eastlakes being quiet suburbs are long gone. They are now part of the bustling metropolis that is Sydney. Recent statistics from Births, Deaths and Marriages show that the suburbs surrounding Botany Aquatic Centre are growing more than ever before. Mascot just cracked the top 50 in New South Wales, when it comes to birth rates.

Labor recognises this and in the lead-up to the last election we pledged an additional $10 million to Botany Bay Council, to partner with them to upgrade Botany pool to create an indoor facility that ensures the pool can remain open for locals all year round. We were pledging to put $10 million into that project and Botany Bay Council was also going to put in $10 million, so it was a $20 million upgrade to allow the pool to be open all year round. Of course, Labor was not elected, but in the wake of the election I found a fund from which we could access this funding: the Community Development Grants Program. But it relied on the local government to make an application for this funding. Recently, Rockdale and Botany councils have been merged to form Bayside Council. Unfortunately, Bayside Council has refused to make this application. They refuse to support this program to upgrade Botany pool. This is the reality of the newly merged councils. The larger population is on the Rockdale side and many services have now been moved out of Botany and over to Rockdale. In the recent round of local infrastructure grants, 70 per cent of the grants funding went to the Rockdale side. This is the reality of the New South Wales Liberal government's proposal to forcibly merge local councils.

Our community—the Botany side of Bayside Council—is being left behind, and the Botany pool upgrade is a classic example of this. I condemn the New South Wales Liberal government for forcing the merger of this council, which is seeing services cut and our community being left behind. I intend to continue to campaign for the upgrade of Botany pool, and I urge all residents to support this campaign.