E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

LEPPINGTON

MONDAY, 19 NOVEMBER, 2018
Subjects: Public transport; Leppington Park and Ride upgrade, Campbelltown Train Station.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Thanks for joining us here at Leppington Railway Station. Of course the Leppington Rail Line is a legacy of the former NSW Labor Government and today I am here with Michael Daley, the New South Wales Labor Leader. I also have with us Dr Mike Freelander, the Member for Macarthur; Anne Stanley, the Member for Werriwa, Aoife Champion, Labor’s Candidate for Hume; we have Anoulack Chanthivong, the State Member for Macquarie Fields; Greg Warren, State Member for Campbelltown and Sally Quinnell, the Labor candidate for Camden.
We are here today to announce joint funding from Federal and New South Wales Labor for a Park and Ride Facility upgrade here at this station. You can see when you arrive here not just that the car park is full, but right around the area people park hundreds of metres away as a direct result of the lack of facilities here. What we need to do is to upgrade Park and Ride facilities and that’s why Labor has established federally a $300 million Commuter Park and Ride Fund. It will upgrade facilities right around the country, but particularly in our outer suburbs and this follows on from announcements that we have made at Schofields in the north-west, at Riverwood and on the Central Coast here in NSW to build these facilities.
This of course is also the location for where we will upgrade the North-South rail corridor through Badgerys Creek Airport to give people the access to the high-value jobs that will come along that North-South corridor as a result of the airport and surrounding developments. So we will commit to $3 billion, we have on the table, for the upgrade and a new rail line from here connecting up through Badgerys Creek, up to St Marys and we will also have a connection down to the Macarthur region, because we want people in Western Sydney to have access to those high-value jobs and we want to partner with New South Wales Labor under Michael Daley, who understands the needs of people in our outer suburbs.
We understand that successful cities are inclusive cities. For that we need to upgrade public transport facilities and that is the key to making sure that people have access to those jobs, that people can get to and from work and can also get to and from their recreational activities. Sydney needs to grow in a way that doesn’t just all point towards the CBD. We need those growth corridors in outer Western Sydney to make sure that people have access to those jobs and this project will do just that.

MICHEL DALEY: Well thank you very much Anthony. It’s good to be here with the Western Sydney MPs. I have been Shadow Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Planning and Infrastructure and the message from the Western Sydney MPs over the years has been to me, and over the week that I have been the Leader, people don’t ask for much, they just want their fair share. So it is governments’ job to make life easier for people in their daily commute.
Last week we announced a terrific program that children of all ages, no matter where they are travelling, what time of day, where they are coming from or where they are going, will travel free on the Opal network. And today with another joint announcement with Federal Labor, this is a further commitment to making life easier and better for families and people who just want to commute. We know that Sydney is an expensive place to live. We know that people understand that Sydney is growing. But they want their fair share. They want particularly Government to invest in real things that can keep the services in line with the growth.
So today, an $8 million announcement, a joint $16 million announcement, to make life easier for commuters in Western Sydney and I have to say I am looking forward to being Premier with Bill Shorten as Prime Minister of Australia. Together we will get terrific things done.
Let’s not forget that the Shorten Opposition has promised $3 billion for the Western Metro, $3 billion to connect this station up to St Marys through Badgerys Creek. People are sick of politicians fighting with each other. They want their politicians and governments working together. That is why it is great to be here with Anthony Albanese for this worthwhile announcement.

REPORTER: To Michael, the State Government has announced that it has cancelled plans to upgrade commuter parking at Campbelltown Station as promised in 2015. Does Labor have any plans to take up that promise?

DALEY: We’ve got a billion dollar fund - that’s a lot of money - a billion dollar fund to improve trains stations all across New South Wales. We will be making announcements in coming days about where we will spend that. Greg Warren can probably have a word to you about that as well, the local member. Greg?

GREG WARREN: Well you’ve got more chance of finding a promise that Gladys Berejiklian hasn’t broken than a car park for Campelltown Railway Station. Then- Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian promised the people of Campbelltown, promised the people of Macarthur, an extra 450 car park spaces. We now know they have broken that promise and back-flipped. It is clear that only a Federal and/or State Labor Government will deliver the commuter needs of Campbelltown. Now there is going to be more to say about that as Michael just said, but the people of Macarthur and indeed South-West Sydney have again been let down by Gladys Berejiklian, Andrew Constance and the New South Wales Liberals.

DALEY: I just have to say in respect of the cancellation of this and other projects, people should ask this very simple question: How is it that the Berejiklian Government can find billions of dollars for stadiums, but they can’t help people out with commuter car parks? That’s a simple question and only the Premier can answer that.

REPORTER: Anthony you mentioned the North-South rail link before. When is Labor likely to (inaudible)?

ALBANESE: Well we of course are committed to it. We have said we will have real dollars attached. One of the tragedies is that we had a Western Sydney City Deal and they announced their support for a rail corridor, but we haven’t had a single dollar from the Berejiklian Government or a single dollar from the ATM Government in Canberra towards this project. What Federal Labor will do is partner with a Daley Labor Government here in New South Wales to deliver upgrades to public transport, whether it be the North-South Corridor through Badgery’s Creek Airport, whether it be the Western Metro or whether it be upgrades in commuter car parks such as this in order to facilitate access to public transport. We know that it’s only Federal Labor that will actually put real dollars towards public transport projects. That is the history of public transport in this state and indeed in the nation, and their failure to deliver, it has been consistent since Federation. They simply haven’t put into public transport projects.


[ENDS]

MONDAY, 19 NOVEMBER, 2018