Statement by Mark Latham, NSW
One Nation Leader
NSW Government
planning documents reveal an impending population increase of 2 million people
in Western Sydney, yet no commitment or funding allocation for a new public
hospital.
In October the
Planning Minister, Anthony Roberts, admitted that, “The State Government is
laying the foundations for the development of a new city around (Badgerys
Creek) Airport (the Aerotropolis) that when completed will be larger than
Adelaide.”
Adelaide has a
population of 1.3 million people. Combined with existing land and housing
development in places like Oran Park, the total population increase in the
Penrith-to-Camden corridor will be 2 million.
Amazingly, given
the scale of urban development, the Berejiklian Government has not announced
any plan for a new hospital to service this vast number of people.
The closest it has
come is at page 48 of its Badgerys Creek Aerotropolis document, which talks of how:
“NSW Health is investigating a site for an integrated health facility within
the Aerotropolis in a metropolitan or strategic centre location supported by
public transport. This could serve up to 250,000 people from around the Western
Parkland City.”
Most likely, the
‘integrated health facility’ will be a series of primary care clinics. In any
case, in meeting the needs of 250,000 people, it is still 1.75 million short in
its servicing capacity for the surrounding population.
The Penrith/Camden
corridor urgently needs State Government funding and site allocation for a new
public hospital. Otherwise the strain on existing hospitals at Nepean,
Liverpool, Campbelltown and Camden will be untenable.
Many people in the
growth corridor will have lengthy travelling times to reach these other
hospitals, which are already over-crowded and under-resourced.
The new hospital
near Badgerys Creek must also have a large, high-quality peadiatric unit, in
recognition of how this part of Western Sydney is becoming the youth capital of
Australia.
One Nation
recommends an early down payment on the hospital’s funding by abandoning the
proposed Powerhouse Museum relocation to Parramatta, estimated to cost $1.1
billion.
It’s an insult to
Western Sydney and our young families to think that museum facilities are more
important to the region than a new hospital in and around Badgerys Creek
specialising in paediatric care.
Both Labor and the
Liberals are committed to spending huge amounts of public money on arts
facilities in Parramatta when the overwhelming priority for the region should
be hospital facilities to cope with the Penrith/Camden population explosion.
This is our
age-long battle in Western Sydney: to provide essential services before the people
move in.
I will fight as
hard as possible to correct this latest planning atrocity in our region.
Pauline Hanson’s
One Nation also has a policy of cutting Australia’s permanent immigration
program by two-thirds, to take these population pressures off Western Sydney in
the first place.