Labor’s $400m rail promise that would connect Badgerys Creek airport to suburbs from day ONE
UPDATE: Barnaby Joyce has questioned how Bill Shorten will fund his pledge to build a $400m rail link connecting Sydney suburbs with the new airport at Badgerys Creek.
NSW
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- Badgerys Creek: Turnbull gets tough on Sydney Airport Group
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ACTING Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has asked Bill Shorten how he proposes to fund the $400 million rail ink connecting Sydney suburbs with the state’s new second major airport at Badgerys Creek.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will announce the commitment today, saying the infrastructure was critical to encouraging jobs and growth in Sydney’s west. The policy announcement from Mr Shorten, two years out from the next federal poll, comes after Labor has outperformed the Turnbull Government in 11 consecutive Newspolls.
But Mr Joyce said today: “Mr Shorten’s going to promise some money, well obviously if he wants to know how earnest he is about these promises, he’s got to show how he’s going to pay for it,” he said.
“Otherwise, he’s going to borrow it and the Labor party will go right back to where they were, just borrowing money from overseas, putting us on a greater trajectory of debt and putting at risk our financial future.”
Mr Shorten said he wants the new rail line to be ready on the same day Badgerys Creek airport opens in 2026.
“A rail connection from day one is critical,” he said.
In the first phase of the rail line project, Labor plans to extend Sydney’s South-West rail link from Leppington via Bringelly to the new airport and will build a new outer orbital train line connecting the airport to Macarthur in the south and St Marys in the north.
It then would look at building an outer orbital rail link connecting St Marys to the Sydney Metro Northwest at Rouse Hill, which will open in 2019. Working with the NSW Government, Labor would commit to an initial Federal contribution of $400 million. The project would need approval from Infrastructure Australia and will rely on additional funding from the NSW Government.
Overall, construction of the Badgerys Creek airport and the new rail line would create more than 43,000 direct jobs and support up to 98,000 jobs in Western Sydney. Mr Shorten said new services were needed in Western Sydney, even without the airport, given it is now home to two million people — more residents than Adelaide.
And Labor plans to ensure 10 per cent of workers involved in the construction of the airport are apprentices — with a significant proportion drawn from Western Sydney.
Labor’s Infrastructure spokesman Anthony Albanese was the first federal politician to support building the second airport at Badgerys Creek.
Yet he has faced opposition from within his own party, with Labor MPs Ed Husic and Emma Hussar expressing concern about the noise and traffic impact of the airport.
“The Government should be announcing rail funding in the budget,” Mr Albanese said last night.
“We need rail from day one because Badgerys Creek isn’t just about the airport, it’s about the economic development and jobs for western Sydney.”
The Sydney Airport Corporation is currently considering whether to take up its right to build and operate Sydney’s second airport. If it declines, the Federal Government stands ready to provide up to $6 billion to build it.
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