Mr MATT KEAN (Hornsby) [7.37 p.m.]: I am delighted to speak in the House today to represent my community. The Hornsby electorate provided me with my first job, my education and a wonderful place to grow up. Hornsby is characterised by its unique and beautiful natural environment. Our council is known as the bushland shire. Hornsby encompasses wonderful bushland areas and pristine waterways and our amazing community is made up of wonderful people. However, all is not as it should be in my community. Over the past 16 years Hornsby has needed infrastructure in the form of hospitals and roads.
But there is one issue that symbolises the former Labor Government's failure to provide for the community of Hornsby: the two communities of Galston and Cowan are without basic sewerage services. These two communities are located in metropolitan Sydney, 40 minutes outside the central business district of Sydney, yet they do not have basic sewerage services.
The lack of basic sewerage services impacts tremendously on the cost of living for residents. I recently visited one of my constituents, Kylie Dawson, who lives at Galston and has two young children. Kylie is a stay-at-home mum. The Dawson family pays $50 a week for a pump-out sewage service. It is an onerous cost that the previous Government was willing to ignore. The lack of sewerage services impacts on a family's way of life as well as its budget and also impacts on the environment. To avoid paying pump-out costs, some residents have connected pipes to their sewerage system and emptied the sewage into the bush, polluting our natural environment.
One of the election commitments I made was to deliver basic sewerage services to the Galston and Cowan communities. I am delighted to advise the House that recently Premier O'Farrell and my great friend and mentor, the Minister for Finance and Services, the Hon. Greg Pearce, announced that this would be addressed. The Government has listened and the Sydney Water operating licence has been changed to ensure that this will be included in its priority sewerage program. The delivery of sewerage to those communities will now be fast tracked up to two or three years ahead of schedule.
The Cowan community can look forward to basic sewerage services being delivered by 30 June 2014 and the Galston community can look forward to basic sewerage services being delivered by 30 June 2015. Benefits to the residents will include a reduction of ongoing maintenance and pump-out costs, elimination of damage and seepage from on-site systems into backyards, the protection of environmentally sensitive creeks and rivers, a reduction in public health risks, and the elimination of odours from septic systems and pump-out trucks. It is a huge win for those communities.
This is only one example of how people at the grassroots level are benefiting from a change in government. The O'Farrell Government is listening to the needs of the people of New South Wales and responding to them. I am delighted to have made this announcement today, which will make a tangible difference. On behalf of the Galston and Cowan communities, I thank Premier O'Farrell and Minister Pearce for taking an interest in delivering basic services to the people of New South Wales.
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