On Tuesday, Campbelltown MP Greg Warren stood up in parliament, put on his shadow minister for Western Sydney hat, and blasted the poor treatment of the region by the state government.
He did not pull any punches in his withering assessment of the 11 year government under its fourth premier.
He pointed out the introduction of new tolls and taxes and the blatant discrimination towards the region during the height of the pandemic.
Premier Dominic Perrottet and his NSW Government colleagues owed residents in Western and South Western Sydney an apology,’’ Mr Warren told the Legislative Assembly.
“The Premier, he’s lucky he’s got a limo driver because he wouldn’t know how to get to Western Sydney or South Western Sydney himself,” Mr Warren said.
“Scomo would be more popular at a Bastille Day dinner in Saint Germain than this government is in West and South West Sydney.”
Mr Warren said residents in the region were still reeling from the new toll on the old and congested M5 East Motorway and the futile pandemic support afforded to them by the NSW Government.
Inadequate education, health, community and public transport infrastructure were also creating a further divide between the west and the rest and fuelling that tale of two cities narrative.
“The refusal to establish critical bus and rail links – like a line from the Western Sydney Airport south to Macarthur – only widens that disconnect,” Mr Warren said.
“The refusal to upgrade or build emergency services and education infrastructure such as the Oran Park Fire Station and Gregory Hills Public School, in the electorate of Camden, have dire impacts on growing communities.
“The refusal to address the historic under-funding, under-staffing and under resourcing of hospitals in South Western Sydney – as identified by an Upper House inquiry – is also compromising the health and welfare of hundreds of thousands of residents in the region.
“These are the cold, hard facts that residents in this part of Sydney are forced to face every day as a result of NSW Government neglect.”
Well said! The south-west needs the state government to make good on at least a few of the “plans” for the south-west – Metro extension to Liverpool, Leppington to the WS Airport, and the promised road upgrades to make up for the Intermodal Traffic.