Editorial: Why the West is a political powerhouse
The Daily Telegraph launched Project Sydney because we believe that, among the many roles our journalism plays, we have a duty to push our politicians to be ambitious.
Opinion
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It used to be said of our national cricket team that if NSW is strong, Australia is strong. We can adapt that belief to a different era and different circumstances.
As our city grows and evolves, it is now certainly the case that if Western Sydney is strong, then NSW is strong.
And beyond that, the future economic powerhouse that is Western Sydney will add massively to Australia’s financial and structural might.
Last night The Daily Telegraph presented the fifth annual Project Sydney Go West Gala Dinner at Bankstown Sports Club. This gala evening celebrated Western Sydney and marked the conclusion of 2018’s Daily Telegraph campaign.
And it also looked forward, as did so many speakers, guests and attendees, to the great progress to be made in Sydney’s most potential-loaded region.
Of course, a huge amount of that potential is already being realised. Premier Gladys Berejiklian presented a compendium of statistics that were individually compelling and collectively overwhelming.
Western Sydney, the Premier pointed out, is home to 25 per cent of the population of NSW — but it is creating 40 per cent of all new jobs in NSW. Those who would deny Western Sydney’s primacy in relation to, for example, the relocation of the Powerhouse Museum would do well to consider this. Additionally, she indicated that since 2011 various government and business partnerships have created nearly 200,000 new Western Sydney jobs. That is a greater number of new jobs than were created in the whole of Queensland and more than Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania combined.
Traditionally, during federal election campaigns, certain political commentators make much of Western Sydney’s influence on government and opposition policies. Some even declare outright that Western Sydney receives more political attention than it deserves. But just look again at those job numbers, which dramatically underline why exactly Western Sydney is not just a demographic and economic force but an electoral force as well.
Growth builds on growth, which is why the NSW government is investing an unprecedented $23 billion in major infrastructure for Western Sydney. Just as a point of comparison, that is more than twice as much as Victoria will spend this year on its entire state. And, unlike so much public money spent in Victoria, none of the cash invested in Western Sydney will be wasted.
That’s because every cent invested will add to the jobs, education and business growth for generations to come.
The Daily Telegraph’s Western Sydney commitment is very deep and, to our readers, staff and advertisers, genuinely rewarding. The Daily Telegraph is big on Western Sydney because we wholeheartedly believe in Western Sydney’s mission.
It is a mission that dovetails perfectly with our own. The Daily Telegraph launched Project Sydney because we believe that, among the many roles our journalism plays, we have a duty to push our politicians to be ambitious. Central to that, in Project Sydney’s initial stages, we focused heavily on rebalancing how your taxes are spent so the less affluent areas of Sydney were not left behind, treated like second-class citizens or taken for granted as a predictable and reliable voting mass.
The Daily Telegraph constantly urges our politicians not to fall victim to narrow-minded and censorious minority outlooks that would hijack, misrepresent and distort mainstream values. That approach concurs with our rejection of the idea that Western Sydney is of secondary status.
It isn’t, and nor should it ever be misrepresented as such.
Not that the people of Western Sydney, who are becoming more influential by the day, are necessarily bothered by uninformed criticism. They know that they are this city’s destiny, and anyone ignoring or misunderstanding the seismic economic powers this involves will inevitably be pushed towards secondary status themselves.
Not that we would ever encourage such a stunt, but it might provide a brilliant illustration of Western Sydney’s increasing energy if the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Harbour Tunnel were to be closed for a year or so. At a stroke, central Sydney would become as it was before 1932.