Get Involved - Parliament

Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link

Published on: July 2020

Record: HANSARD-1323879322-111718

Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:

The question is that the House take note of the petition.

Dr MARJORIE O'NEILL (Coogee) (15:56):

:50 I acknowledge the 10,000 signature petition relating to the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link. Firstly I acknowledge the 10,000 people who have signed this petition, voicing their concerns that the Government has left them and their communities in the dark about this major infrastructure project. I commend the organisers of this petition, many of whom are watching now. Some 10,000 signatures were collected from the Premier's own electorate. As the scientist Margaret Mead puts it:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

The Opposition supports the sensible job creating opportunities associated with the Western Harbour Tunnel, especially at a time of economic crisis and record unemployment in New South Wales. We are standing here today—not to oppose to project at this stage—but to condemn the Government on the lack transparency and community consultation to date.

It is currently almost impossible to come to an informed position on this project as so little is known about what impacts it will have on the people closest to it. Thousands of local people have deep concerns about what the impacts of the Western Harbour Tunnel will be on their local community. We are here to voice the concerns of local communities that feel the Government and the Premier is ignoring them. In addition, we have serious concerns about the Beaches Link, specifically a questionable business case that the Government has fought tooth and nail to keep secret despite Parliament's best efforts to ensure transparency—a key tenet of democracy.

Nobody disputes that improving transportation infrastructure is critical to this State. However for infrastructure to work and be fit for purpose the community must be consulted about the initial concept, during the development process and during construction. The lack of transparency and community consultation is alarming. The systemic lack of transparency and this Government's pattern of secrecy is even more alarming. Why is transparency so important with this and other major infrastructure projects? It is because the people of New South Wales deserve to know how their taxes are being spent and to ensure it is not wasted. This project is costing the taxpayer at least $14 billion—that is, $14 billion for 14 kilometres or $1 billion per kilometre. For $1 billion per kilometre this project deserves the fine toothcomb treatment, ensuring it is worth every cent for the people most impacted by it.

The Berejiklian Government has a long track record of ruining homes with WestConnex and livelihoods with the CBD and South East Light Rail. The Government needs to do better with this project. It needs to engage with the community. Unfortunately, lack of transparency and obsolete community consultation appear to be the norm. As the member for Coogee I continue to see firsthand how the community is completely ignored by this Government. My community has experienced the repercussions of infrastructure being built without community consultation. The Government's modus operandi is to act under the clock of darkness—without any transparency or scrutiny—because it knows the public will take issue with its rushed, ill-designed and ill-fitted projects. We saw this during the planning and construction of the CBD and South East Light Rail.

The Australian

In 2017 reported the transport Minister had tried to drop this project entirely. The article explained that the Minister described it as a "dog of a project". The article also revealed that the project had to be continued because the contract was signed in such a rush that every alteration would cost the Government five times more than it should have.

Since being elected, my office has received thousands of complaints about light rail during its construction, testing and now during its operation, but the secrecy of this Government continues. Only last week I received the results of a Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 request into the Government's plan to cut 16 bus services from the eastern suburbs. The request for information was rejected "because current commuters may be disgruntled if they believe their service is being cancelled". Yes, the community will be disgruntled, as will our bus drivers if their services are cancelled and there is less work. The Government's arrogance is astounding if it thinks the community does not have a right to know. The community has a right to know if such significant and operant changes are coming so they can do something about it and prevent those things from occurring. Ignorance might be bliss for this Government, but it means misery for the people of New South Wales who it claims to represent.

Mr JAMES GRIFFIN (Manly) (16:00):

:55 I acknowledge the people in my community who may have signed this petition and I understand their concerns. I have sat in their living rooms, met in their kitchens and worked with community groups and volunteer organisations to bring about some significant change to improve the design of this project as it relates to the Manly electorate. That means minimising construction time and increasing public space. Obviously the Government is committed to minimising disruption for this project throughout the communities and to building the best project possible. However, this petition has been hijacked by the Labor Party as an opportunity to rob the people of the northern beaches of the investment that they deserve. Labor is trying to pitch one community against another while offering no plan for the people of the northern beaches.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:

Order! The member for Coogee will come to order. She has had her chance to contribute. The member for Rockdale will come to order.

Mr JAMES GRIFFIN:

Members opposite should listen to all 15 of their members who ran as Labor candidates in the Northern Beaches Council elections. They pledged to take it to their party and advocate for the tunnel. They said, "We will fight for it, if that is what we need to do. We will raise the concerns to the top of the Labor Party ladder." But it gets weirder. The Labor Party candidate in the State election—she is a lovely lady; I think she actually voted for me—said she violently opposed the tunnel. She said, "This election will be a referendum on the tunnel." Then she lost.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:

The member for Balmain will come to order.

Mr JAMES GRIFFIN:

Members opposite do not know anything about this project. They do not care about the people of the northern beaches. They do not understand the commute. They do not understand our topography, the geography or the history of the project. To understand they would need to experience the commute. Understanding the commute would probably be pretty difficult to do when you host your northern beaches Labor forum—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:

The member for Manly will direct his comments through the Chair.

Mr JAMES GRIFFIN:

When they host their northern beaches Labor forum in Lindfield, which is not on the northern beaches, it is pretty complicated to understand the commute for people on the northern beaches. Despite reams of information about this project being available online, members opposite probably do not know that it improves travel time, increases bus connectivity from the northern beaches and creates a new connection with the metro tunnel. What those members should also probably know is that Infrastructure Australia have this as a priority project. It has shortened the time frame of delivery. Here is another tip for members opposite: the NRMA conducted a survey for people to have their voices heard. Some 23,000 people spoke up—double the number of this petition. What those people said—

Mr Jamie Parker:

Do you support filtering the stacks?

Mr JAMES GRIFFIN:

No, those people had their voices heard. They said that the Military Road corridor ranked in the top 10 worst roads in New South Wales. They are saying they want this tunnel built. They want this project done. Let us hurry up and get on with it.

Ms Jo Haylen:

They are kidding themselves if they think it is going to fix Military Road.

Mr JAMES GRIFFIN:

No, no, no. Beyond hijacking this petition as a Trojan horse to rob the people of the northern beaches, Labor offers no plan—none whatsoever. Wait, you did have a plan. The plan was to cancel the project and then spend the money for that project, but not on the northern beaches.

Ms Jo Haylen:

On public transport.

Mr JAMES GRIFFIN:

No, not on the northern beaches.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:

Order!

Mr JAMES GRIFFIN:

The plan that they had for the community of Manly was to take the project, rip it up and not spend the money on the northern beaches. That was it.

Delivering a major road transport infrastructure project has its challenges. The Government is committed to working with the community through those challenges. Hijacking a petition to rip off the people of the northern beaches and prey upon community concern is shameful. It might work at the Northern Beaches Labor forum at Lindfield but it does not work on the streets of Manly, all the way up the coast to Palm Beach. Shame on you.

Ms JO HAYLEN (Summer Hill) (16:05):

:02 I thank the thousands of New South Wales residents who have brought this important petition to the Parliament, and particularly the many parents and carers from schools across Sydney's lower North Shore who are very worried about the impacts of this project. This petition sends, yet again, a clear message to the Government that the people of New South Wales are fed up with its addiction to polluting toll roads. The Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link is just the latest arm in the tangle of toll roads built by this Government under the WestConnex banner. In fact, under those opposite Sydney has become the most tolled city in the world. No wonder the Premier called it "toll mania".

By 2023, Sydney will have 12 toll roads and it will be almost impossible for motorists to avoid them. Some tolls are rising by more than three times the rate of inflation. Our kids and their kids will be paying exorbitant amounts to use these roads. Those who have signed this petition know that the decades of tolls are not the only costs built into these roads. They fear for their homes, for the health of their children who are forced to live and learn under the pollution of exhaust stacks, and for the local environment. They fear the toxic waste carted down their streets and shipped on the harbour and waterways, and they fear for the health of our democratic institutions that are consistently bypassed by this Government. They are furious about the lack of consultation, the secrecy and the silence that meets their basic inquiries about the toll roads.

Sadly, we have seen this all before. In my electorate, in Sydney's inner west, the residents of Ashfield and Haberfield have lived through years and years of dust, noise and disruption from WestConnex. We have seen heritage homes destroyed, residents ripped off hundreds of thousands of dollars through unfair acquisitions and residents ignored during the environmental impact statement [EIS] process. The Government has ignored conditions set by its own approval process for the project, which included public transport options as a consequence of the toll road. There has been damage to property along the WestConnex route, including families living with cracks in their roofs and their homes subsiding.

Only last week an apartment block in Ashfield was evacuated because of structural issues that may be linked to tunnels beneath that block. Smokestacks are built within 500 metres of local schools, ignoring the concerns of parents and teachers. The Government has been forced to admit that the tunnels have jammed locals streets with more traffic, contrary to the fancy billboards that were erected when they started construction featuring nice pictures of happy people walking their dogs. No, those roads are completely jammed and you cannot use them. Now Transport for NSW is trying to come up with a solution that will not make local traffic worse for local residents.

It is infuriating that this Government has learnt nothing from this experience. With the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link it is making the same mistakes over and over again. The Government has not released the business case and it is stalling on efforts for basic transparency measures. Of the 1,455 submissions received, the vast majority were against the Western Harbour Tunnel and yet the Government is pushing ahead. Some of the councils that are raising concerns include the City of Sydney, Inner West Council, Willoughby City Council and North Sydney Council, which smashes the EIS in its submission. The submission refers to:

… inadequate justification and need, loss of open space, construction and operational road network impacts, air-quality and human health concerns, environmental, visual, social, and amenity and heritage impacts, as well as numerous strategic projects having the potential to be compromised.

That statement was made by the radical North Sydney Council. The Government is ignoring the concerns of residents when it comes to air quality and the location of unfiltered smokestacks, pollution and the safety of residents from toxic waste, the impacts on local businesses and open spaces, and protection for local properties from vibration, round-the-clock construction work, noise and dust.

It speaks volumes that residents from the Premier's electorate had to bring their concerns directly to the Parliament to have their voices heard. Members opposite must answer serious questions about those toll road projects and one of them is: Given we know the Government ordered Transport for NSW to exclude public transport alternatives when assessing the cost‑benefit ratios of toll roads, how can we be sure that they are the best projects for New South Wales? The people who brought the petition before the House clearly think not and thousands of people in the Premier's electorate think not as well. It is time that she listened to them.

Ms FELICITY WILSON (North Shore) (16:10):

:12 I genuinely thank the member for Coogee for bringing this petition before the House today. The member for Manly and I were elected to Parliament on the same day and both ran quite significantly on the platform that we would deliver this project, because our collective communities have been calling out for it for at least 40 years. The member for Manly and I love every opportunity to speak about this project to make sure that the voices in our communities are heard because it is the number one project they want to see delivered. That has once again been reiterated by the fact that both of us have just been re‑elected for a second time after putting this platform to our communities—not the member for Coogee's community, which she can purport to represent, but to our local communities. I would be interested to know if she could tell me the percentage of constituents in my electorate who signed the petition that she has brought before the House, because it is incredibly small.

I enjoy always listening to my constituents. I am happy to hear the views of every constituent who contacts me about this project, even those who have signed a petition, because all of these infrastructure projects can be incredibly impactful on individuals in our communities. When an infrastructure project of this magnitude is put forward, it will have impacts. We are doing everything we can in the detailed design and planning to ameliorate those impacts.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:

The member for Summer Hill will come to order.

Ms FELICITY WILSON:

I thank all of my community members for keeping me informed about their views. Throughout the number of years of incredibly extensive consultation for this project we have made significant changes and adaptations based upon their feedback. I again thank people in our collective communities for sharing their views, including my local council of North Sydney, which has been very active in meeting with me and the Minister in recent years to share those views.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:

The member for Summer Hill has had an opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

Ms FELICITY WILSON:

Members opposite should acknowledge that as a government we are listening to our communities and providing the infrastructure and services that they need and call for. As a resident and ratepayer of North Sydney Council, I acknowledge that it has every right to contribute its views to this process. I have had extensive conversations with many of the councillors and council staff about it. I am grateful to them for participating in this process. I remind members opposite that the member for Coogee spoke a lot about projects in her electorate, but she did not speak about my electorate, the member for Manly's electorate, the member for Willoughby's electorate, the member for Pittwater's electorate or the member for Wakehurst's electorate—the people who are genuinely and directly impacted. For at least 40 years individuals have been crying out for this project, which has been knocked back by Labor governments that do not care about our communities because they think only their electorates should receive infrastructure investment.

The fact is that Military and Spit roads—the main arterial roads in my community—will be affected by this project, as well as the local roads. The rat‑running on back roads, which go past numerous schools, dense housing developments, aged‑care centres and retirement villages, impacts our local roads because people from much further up the beaches are using our roads downstream to get into the city. You cannot underestimate the impact on people's daily lives of the traffic and rat‑running on local roads. The number one issue brought to me by my community, and to the member for Warringah in the Federal Parliament, is traffic congestion and what that does to people's lives. Those roads are over capacity and, as the member for Manly acknowledged, Military Road is one of the top 10 most congested roads in the entire country. When I was looking through NRMA's top 10 list across the whole country, I did not see any roads in the member for Coogee's electorate, but I saw a road in my electorate. That is why I am grateful that we have the opportunity to speak about this.

My community not only wants this project—it needs it. We know that only a Liberal government will deliver this commitment. I am proud to say that we are getting on with the job, reflecting the wishes of our community. Driving in my electorate is not an efficient mode of transport, with average weekday peak hour speeds of 22 kilometres per hour and average weekend speeds of 24 kilometres per hour on Military Road and Spit Road. I thank the Minister for Transport and Roads and the Premier for their empathy when listening to the community and for getting on with delivering the infrastructure services that only the Berejiklian Government can deliver.

Mr STEPHEN KAMPER (Rockdale) (16:15):

:15 I begin by congratulating the more than 10,000 citizens of New South Wales who have brought this petition to this place to force a debate on an important issue. This is a fight worth having. The Berejiklian Government's toll-mania program is hitting other areas of Sydney hard. This petition clearly demonstrates that residents of Sydney's northern suburbs know about that, and they do not want this chaotic roadshow coming to them. We have seen what the Berejiklian toll tax will has done to the suburbs of Rockdale. Up until 5 July the M5 East was free to use—as it had been since it opened nearly 20 years ago—but now cars and motorcycles are being tolled up to around $7 each way, with trucks being charged up to $21. Our suburbs are paying the price for these outrageous toll taxes. That hurts families—do not forget that. Thousands of B-double trucks have since descended on our local roads, and I do not doubt that the new toll roads will lead to a similar situation in Sydney's north.

We are currently experiencing in Australia what is likely to be the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Governments around the world are doing everything they can to stimulate their economies. The Commonwealth Government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars via direct payments to individuals and businesses just to keep them afloat in the short term. We all know that the New South Wales Government does not see stimulus as its responsibility. It is one thing not to support the economy at a time like this; it is another thing entirely to actively try to damage it through a toll tax program. Do members opposite seriously think that people and freight moving around our city can afford to be taxed more? Nobody in the world thinks that we can tax our way out of a recession—apparently except for the New South Wales Government. Perhaps the worst thing about this new toll tax in Sydney's north is that the roadway does not seem to stack up. The community is right to be concerned about the lack of consultation.

Ten thousand people—an overwhelming proportion of whom live in the electorates of members opposite—have signed this petition. Every one of those people has a right to be heard and they deserve to be listened to by their elected representatives. Instead, they have been ignored and kept in the dark. The Government fought against the community's right to see the business case for the northern beaches tunnel every step of the way. This petition makes reasonable requests of this Government and of the petitioners' elected representatives. If members opposite cannot provide that very basic representation to their constituents then they do not deserve to be here. There are serious questions about how the Government comes up with white elephant projects that nobody in the community asks for. I can just picture the Treasurer coming up with ridiculous infrastructure spends in his crazy projects unit so that he can mismanage the funding and project delivery, and leave behind a perpetual tax as a "thanks for coming". That is what this Government is all about—implementing new taxes to fund its own incompetence and calling it "asset recycling". This is a revolutionary technique of budget mismanagement courtesy of Treasurer Perrottet.

Time expired

I can hear the conversation with Canberra now. The Treasurer will call up and says, "Hey, Josh. It's Dom. I'm knocking up a white paper, mate. It's a new approach I've got during these times: austerity when it's tough. I need your help to slug the punter more at the supermarket. They've got to eat, so we'll get them good there for sure!" He will go on to say, "Next, I'll put up land taxes on their houses. They're all mortgaged up; they're stuck in the mud and can't avoid that one. We'll get them there! Then get this one, Josh: They'll have to work to pay for all of this, so we'll slug them on the way to work. It's a toll tax, Josh. I'm so excited!" We know that Josh and the rest of Canberra are running from this guy. The Treasurer is only getting the voice message that says, "Hi, you've called Josh. Please leave a message after the tone." [.]

Ms ELENI PETINOS (Miranda) (16:20):

:33 How the member for Rockdale delivered his contribution with a straight face is beyond me. I will say this much about the Opposition: They have never met an infrastructure project that they do not hate. They never deliver on anything. It is irrelevant what they say to the public because everyone knows that they cannot be held to their word on delivering any projects. The member for Rockdale was talking about the people of the North Shore not wanting the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link. To him I say that the people of the North Shore have been waiting for this project for 40 years. That should be something that he is very familiar with, given that his constituents have been waiting for the F6 for 70 years and it has taken this Government to deliver it. Shame on him for not supporting infrastructure for the people of the northern suburbs.

The Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link project is a major transport infrastructure program that will make it easier, faster and safer to get around Sydney. Faster and more reliable trips are essential to reducing congestion and providing improved access to jobs, recreation and services such as schools and hospitals. Three million trips are made across Sydney Harbour each week, making the Warringah Freeway one of the busiest and most complex roads in the country. This project will help to ease pressure on the road network and on its customers. With a direct connection to WestConnex, it will reduce congestion on the Anzac Bridge, the Western Distributor and the Sydney Harbour Bridge corridor.

The Beaches Link will create an alternative to the Military Road and Warringah Road corridors and will relieve traffic pressure on the North Shore. I note that the construction program is expected to support up to 15,000 full-time equivalent jobs. The Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link is part of an integrated transport network with a focus on new public transport connections, improved journey times and bus reliability. The Western Harbour Tunnel alone will deliver significant time savings for customers, including up to 20 minutes between Leichhardt and North Sydney, 20 minutes between Sydney Olympic Park and North Sydney and 15 minutes between North Sydney and the airport.

Since the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link was announced in March 2017, Transport for NSW has carried out extensive community consultation to ensure that the community has had opportunities to be engaged and to provide their feedback. The extensive consultation carried out in 2017 and 2018 has led to a number of positive improvements to the project. The community feedback that was received will be addressed via a response to submissions report, which Transport for NSW is preparing. The report will be submitted to the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment to inform the conditions of approval and the decision of the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces. I note that the independent NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer released a report finding that emissions from well-designed road tunnels cause a negligible change to surrounding air quality and, as such, there is little to no health effect on surrounding communities. Labor members are completely baseless in their claims.

Mr JAMIE PARKER:

I seek leave to contribute to the debate as a member who is affected by and opposes the Western Harbour Tunnel and who supports filtration.

Leave not granted.

Dr MARJORIE O'NEILL (Coogee) (16:24:02):

In reply: I thank the community members who have signed this petition, many of whom are watching today. I remind the Government that this petition was started by residents of the North Shore community. They brought it to us as the Opposition to table it, because they have no faith in the members who look after them.

Even just before I came into this place, they continued say that they have put in Government Information (Public Access) Act after GIPAA to try to find out information regarding business cases, but these applications continue to be rejected. They are trying to find out information and everything is cloaked in darkness. There is absolutely no transparency around this. I acknowledge and thank the member for Summer Hill and member for Rockdale for their contributions. In particular, I thank them for sharing their experiences about how, when major infrastructure projects happen and there is a lack of transparency and community consultation, they know the real implications of that situation for community members.

I now want to clarify a couple of things said by the member for Manly and member for North Shore. We are not necessarily arguing about whether this project should go ahead at this point in time. A fundamental part of this petition is the lack of transparency in this project. Good governance must be initiated when we are going through major infrastructure projects. The late John Keynes once said, "Administrative secrecy feeds conspiracy theories and reduces the public's confidence in government." The Premier's own constituents have lost confidence in her. Members and constituents from the North Shore have lost confidence in this Government. That is why they brought this petition to us, the Opposition, to stand in here and defend it. They know that their own members are not advocating on their behalf.

Petition noted.