‘We need to stand up against him’: Fiery exchange between Premier Chris Minns and western Sydney mayor Frank Carbone
A spat over housing targets has seen Chris Minns accuse Fairfield mayor Frank Carbone of ‘trying to mislead the public’ and Carbone claim Minns is ‘dumping’ new housing on the west.
NSW
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A public spat has broken out between Premier Chris Minns and popular western Sydney Mayor Frank Carbone, with the Fairfield mayor launching a fiery broadside at the Premier over housing targets in the west.
Mr Minns hit back at Mr Carbone’s comments that development reforms were “dumping” new housing on western Sydney, accusing the mayor of “trying to mislead the public”.
Mr Carbone claimed the Premier, in a letter sent earlier this year, told him his constituents could use pools and other facilities in neighbouring areas like Blacktown and Liverpool after the mayor highlighted a lack of facilities in his own area.
The move drew a fiery response from Mr Carbone, who accused the Premier on not knowing his western Sydney geography.
He also took aim for him at not backing an election promise by former Premier Dominic Perrottet to explore building a new Metro line connecting Parramatta to the Western Sydney Airport, which would likely have travelled through a portion of Mr Carbone’s council area.
“He has cut off our transport when it comes to the east-west, he’s dumping the housing on us. We need to stand up and speak against him. I am not going to accept that what he says is best for western Sydney – we’re not here to be used by a Premier just trying to win the next election,” a fired-up Mr Carbone said.
Premier Minns hit back at Mr Carbone’s comments about housing, saying they were “ridiculous”.
“We have been clear that we will be rebalancing housing targets, delivering more new homes closer to the Sydney CBD,” he said.
“Mr Carbone either hasn’t been paying attention to what we’ve been saying about housing, or he’s trying to mislead the public.”
He added Fairfield Hospital was getting a $550m revamp, while other road upgrades were also going ahead in the area as well as a $60 weekly toll cap which would help western Sydney drivers.
Mr Carbone had previously threatened to run in the state election earlier this year, in a move which could have split Labor’s votes in an area considered the party’s heartland.
The fiery exchange was triggered by wide-ranging reforms set to be introduced by the end of the year, which will give developers easier approval for higher height and density in their projects, if they designate 15 per cent of it as social and affordable housing.
The City of Sydney will be exempt from the proposals, with Mr Carbone accusing the Premier of “picking and choosing on where to put the housing, and who to tax for it, and that is in the western suburbs”.
A City of Sydney spokeswoman defended the reforms not applying to the authority, stating: “Put simply: We are exempt from these new controls because we already have an Affordable Housing levy, on all developments in the Local Government Area, and the proposed new controls are weaker than what we already have in place”.
Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully, agreed that “City of Sydney already have a well-established approach to inclusionary zoning which is already delivering affordable housing”.
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