Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to place on record how out of touch this government is, not only the government here in Canberra but also the New South Wales state government, which is about to knock down two perfectly good stadiums, one which was only built recently. The government is about to spend $2.5 billion on stadiums that do not require knocking down and rebuilding, and it is being done at the expense of so many other infrastructure projects in my community, in particular.

They're knocking down and rebuilding these stadiums, but we're happy to offer some suggestions on some of the alternatives that they might like to spend their $2.5 billion on. For example, we could build four regional hospitals. I know, Deputy Speaker, that in your part of the world that might make sense. We could build 139 primary schools, especially when we look at the growth in our country and how many more kids will need to go to school. There is also the secondary school dilemma we currently have in my electorate of Lindsay. That would be 62.5 high schools. And what about the Nepean Hospital—I have to get up in here week in and week out and tell everybody that it is still the most-under-pressure hospital in New South Wales. But we don't have a billion dollars coming to it, like the other four major hospitals in the community. We only have $550 million. It won't even bring us up to the standard that we needed yesterday, let alone what we'll need in five years' time.

So, we see $2.5 billion being spent to knock down and rebuild two perfectly good stadiums. You've got to give the Liberals in New South Wales credit for their stupidity on this, because the public are not a bunch of mugs. They understand and they know when money is being wasted and when it is being flaunted. And it is not their money to waste; it is taxpayers' money. The taxpayers demand better and have asked for better. They've signed a petition that already has over 150,000 signatures, and that number was reached in under 24 hours. Congratulations to Peter FitzSimons for organising it.

We also have a brand new toll on a road that was previously tolled. We removed the toll road, they then extended it and now we have a brand new toll, which will cost people in my electorate $2,500 per year more, simply just to get to and from work every day. That is completely unacceptable and incredibly out of touch. But it is something we see over and over again from this government.

The changes we now see to the train timetables look to me like a slow passage to privatisation of the trains, when the government will turn around and say 'It's not our business to run these trains.' It will add about 15 minutes each way to the journey of commuters in my electorate, 83 per cent of whom have to travel for over an hour each day to get to and from work. We also have the proposal to build the world's largest incinerator, which is quite a backwards way of dealing with waste, but we won't labour too much on that point. It's going to be 800 metres from homes, and dumped on the doorstep of a local school, without any adequate environmental protections. I think it would be humorous to refer to 'adequate protections', because I'm not sure the government knows that such things exist for such a large project.

Let's talk about the 24-hour airport that has been dumped on my doorstep. We are being told that we are going to get all of the jobs for the local people. It has no infrastructure to go with it. When we ask about the details, about the transparency, it is, unsurprisingly, lacking. The Minister for Infrastructure and Transport has invited me to a briefing today at almost five o'clock, when we should be leaving here instead of sitting down to deal with this. He has knocked back my request on two occasions to be appointed to the committee that is considering this, even though that airport falls within my electorate. He's on the board for the Mascot Airport, and that is not even in his electorate, along with 10 other MPs.

We also haven't forgotten the promises that those opposite made at the last election to reduce power bills by $550 per year. In my community, where temperatures during summer hit peak, that would make a massive, massive difference. They haven't forgotten that promise that was made and that has been broken. Not only has the promise been broken; it's been substituted not with $550 but with $150, which is about 50c per week—which won't make a difference when they're paying additional tolls. Since 2013, the annual bill in my electorate has risen by close to $1,000, yet those opposite continue with their cuts—cuts to schools, cuts to TAFE, cuts to our local university. We want better schools, better results and better support, and those opposite are out of touch.