Immigration minister Peter Dutton invited to Fairfield by mayor Frank Carbone
Exclusive: immigration Minister Peter Dutton has been invited to come and see what the much-maligned city of Fairfield is truly about.
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Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone has issued an invitation to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to come and see what the much-maligned city is truly about.
Fairfield has hit national headlines in recent days after NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley suggested Anglo-Australian families were fleeing Fairfield’s entrenched disadvantage.
“Given that we’ve taken such a large amount of Australia’s refugees in recent years, I’m happy to welcome Mr Dutton to the city and have a conversation about making sure refugees have the opportunity to make bigger contributions to our city and our nation,” Cr Carbone said.
He said from 2016, approximately 7000 refugees from Iraq and Syria resettled in Fairfield City.
Long before his city was suddenly in the spotlight, the mayor of six years was advocating better investment in infrastructure, schools and health.
“We have welcomed migrants successfully over many decades,” Cr Carbone said.
“But when the Federal Government puts 7000 people in one place over such a short period, they need to accept responsibility and make sure they provide resources to maintain our quality of life.”
Cr Carbone said counting houses instead of people was part of the problem.
“If you had a new suburb with 2000 new homes in it, there would be new resources pouring into it,” Cr Carbone said.
“Growth isn’t just about housing – we’ve added 7000 new people but because the volume of housing hasn’t increased, neither have the resources.”
Change is ahead for Sydney’s southwest as work on the airport at Badgerys Creek progresses.
Cr Carbone said it was high time Fairfield became part of the conversation about the future of Sydney’s western city.
I want to see the governments fast-track an east-west metropolitan train link from the new airport to Parramatta through Prairiewood,” he said. “That would enable us to capitalise on our multiculturalism as a gateway to the airport to create jobs in tourism. It would take traffic off our roads and improve people’s lives – no-one should have to spend three hours a day in transit to work.”
Cr Carbone said he hoped governments would finally take stock of the region’s needs after a week under the microscope.
“These are not new issues to me, or to our city,” he said.
“We’ve done the heavy lifting out here for decades and it’s time to provide the investment Fairfield City deserves.”