Badgerys Creek Airport developer to set up shop in Liverpool, creating hundreds of jobs
EXCLUSIVE: Sydney’s southwest is set to receive a vital jobs injection from the company overseeing the Badgerys Creek Airport project, which will set up offices in Liverpool by year’s end.
NSW
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THE $5.3 billion corporation that will develop Badgerys Creek airport will be based in Liverpool, opening up desperately needed jobs in southwestern Sydney.
Western Sydney Airport Corporation (WSA Co) staff will move into the Scott St site by the end of the year as work begins on planning and building Sydney’s second major airport.
Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher will unveil the move in a speech in Parramatta today, in which he will describe it as a “vote of confidence in Liverpool”.
“Hundreds of people could end up working at the Liverpool site, with the airport expected to employ 9000 people directly when it opens in 2026,” Mr Fletcher (pictured) will say. “An early priority for the company will be establishing permanent offices (and) it is very important that these be located in Western Sydney.”
The southwest has Sydney’s worst unemployment rate, at 6.6 per cent, compared with the NSW rate of 4.8 per cent.
“The company needs to be based close to the airport site at Badgerys Creek — and in a location where it can draw on the best available talent in Western Sydney,” Mr Fletcher will say. “Locating this $5.3 billion business in Liverpool is a vote of confidence in Liverpool as a great place to do business. It will also give (WSA Co) the opportunity to partner with other key institutions based in Liverpool, such as the University of Wollongong, which opened a Liverpool campus last year.”
The announcement follows sharp criticism of the Badgerys Creek airport process by Western Sydney Labor MP Ed Husic, who said it was “a joke” that nobody from the area could be found to sit on the corporation’s board.
“So far all of the key decision-making jobs associated with this project have not gone to a single Western Sydney resident,” Mr Husic said earlier this month.
The government has appointed Western Sydney University chancellor Peter Shergold to head community consultation and Optus chairman Paul O’Sullivan to lead the company.
But Liverpool City Council Mayor Wendy Waller described today’s announcement as “the best possible news for Liverpool”.
“This announcement sends a very clear signal to anyone thinking of investing in the airport, business parks and aerospace precinct: You need to be in Liverpool too,” she said.
It is estimated the airport will have generated 60,000 direct jobs by the time it is finished, in 2063.
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