Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to show my support for the New South Wales government's Sydney Metro West project. Parramatta is Australia's most dynamic CBD, and it deserves that title for a number of reasons. First of all, it is the fastest-growing CBD in Australia, with a million square metres of new office space recently laid down and a million more to come. It has all the right ingredients to become Australia's next global city, and that's being recognised by businesses right across the country, with 30 per cent of Australia's ASX 100 businesses now having a presence in Parramatta. At around $30 billion to $35 billion, if Parramatta were a country on its own, it would make it into the top 100 economies in the world by size. Parramatta also has a young and highly educated workforce, with no fewer than nine university campuses. Our local community is home to Western Sydney's best and brightest, and in the next 20 years Parramatta's population is set to double in size.

One of the great assets of Parramatta as a global city is its connectedness. It sits right in the geographic heart of Greater Sydney and, because of its centrality, Parramatta is the gateway to the economic powerhouse of Western Sydney. So many businesses, from KPMG to NAB and the ABC, are taking advantage of Parramatta's perfect balance between connectivity, affordability and a workforce of young, job-ready locals. This is why the Parramatta Metro is so important. It would not only build on Parramatta's natural strengths as a regional hub but significantly add to its local economy. A recent study by Ethos Urban found that a Metro station in Parramatta would deliver $1.1 billion per annum to the local economy and 9,410 full-time-equivalent jobs.

I want to commend Premier Chris Minns. Premier Minns inherited a swathe of infrastructure projects in trouble—projects that were over time and over budget—and it's appropriate that he review these projects and make sure that they are on track to deliver the proposed benefits and that they're optimised to make sure that they're delivered as quickly as possible and with as much upside for the local community as possible. That's why right now Premier Minns is undertaking a statewide review into how to clean up the mess left behind by the Liberal government. I respect that, but I also look forward to the delivery of Metro West and the enormous benefits that it will bring to Western Sydney, because it's true that the costs of the project have increased but so have the benefits.