You are here

Northern Sydney Public Infrastructure

Mr MATT KEAN (Hornsby) [12.22 p.m.]: The member for Keira delivered up an interesting piece of fiction when he said the North Shore does not want additional residents. However, the member fails to remember that it was a Labor Government that imposed additional residents on Hornsby. It took the power from our local community to plan locally. The Labor Government required another 24,000 dwellings to be built in Hornsby in the next 10 years.

Did my community have a say about how that should be done? No, it had none whatsoever. That is just another example of Labor's draconian planning policies, which overrode local communities and local decisions.

The member for Toongabbie asked: What do our communities want? My community in Hornsby wants basic sewerage services. In 2012 communities such as Galston and Cowan still do not have sewerage or basic water services, and that is appalling. Why? It is because, as the member for Keira said, it is about the politics of envy. The only crime that my constituents committed is living in the postcode 2077. Why were they punished? It is because the Labor Party wanted to play the politics of envy—and it does not stop at basic sewerage services. Our road network is clogged. The Government let 200,000 additional people move to the north-west of Sydney but offered no viable public transport solution.

But we must not assume that the Labor Government did not try to provide a public transport solution. In 1998 it promised to start construction of the North West Rail Link, which was then axed. In 2008 it promised to build the north-west metro and in 2005 it promised a central business district harbour crossing. But then those projects were axed. The former Government made lots of commitments to provide infrastructure to support the increased number of people that it imposed on our communities but it failed to deliver the infrastructure required. It was grossly negligent, and another example of the Labor patronage machine paying lip-service to our communities and delivering very little. That is why the public dealt with the Australian Labor Party in the manner it did at the last election.

The one piece of infrastructure that symbolises most dramatically Labor's failure with regard to North Shore communities is the appalling state in which it left Hornsby hospital. Is it acceptable that our nurses and doctors should have to put out buckets and towels every time it rains? That is disgraceful. Is it acceptable that doctors trip over power cords in the operating theatres? That is not acceptable. It is certainly not acceptable that possums were found in the operating theatres and the intensive care unit. But the former Government allowed that to happen. It is a bit rich for the member for Keira to claim that Hornsby and the North Shore do not want infrastructure.

Read full transcript here.