CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
Mrs McINTOSH (Lindsay) (10:38): Western Sydney International Airport will shortly open its doors to passengers. It's exciting for travellers and for workers and for Western Sydney. But the Albanese Labor government has put the airport timetable ahead of the people beneath the flight paths.
The passenger flights are moving ahead. The promised noise protection is not. Freight aircraft is already flying over our local communities throughout the night.
Families in Luddenham, Greendale, Silverdale, Wallacia, Badgerys Creek and Kemps Creek are already hearing them over their homes—around 22 take-offs and landings between 8 pm and 5.30 am Monday to Thursday. Yet the insulation that these people were promised has not been delivered. You do not protect a community after the impact starts; you protect it before.
Labor announced its noise insulation program three years ago—236 properties are eligible, 129 applications have been lodged, and 74 have been approved. Yet, with only seven weeks until the first commercial passenger flight, only 17 properties are even at the acoustic assessment stage. After three years of promises, not one installation has been completed.
These aren't numbers on a noise map. These are people trying to sleep. These are parents, school kids and shiftworkers.
There are families in places like Mulgoa who hear the aircraft but fall outside of the eligibility boundary. The Albanese Labor government is asking them to trust a noise forecast for 2040. They're not living in 2040; they're lying in bed hearing planes in 2026.
One Mulgoa resident went public with her frustration, challenging the Prime Minister and transport minister. She said, 'Come and spend a night in my home and see what you think about it.' Go to Mulgoa Prime Minister and Minister King and hear what these families hear—because aircraft noise does not stop at a bureaucratic boundary. The government shouldn't be supporting this.
The government should be supporting the local community. We want the airport to succeed for the people of Western Sydney. We have been promised jobs and opportunities for many, many years, but the success of the airport cannot come at the expense of Western Sydney families.
I've stood with these people in Mulgoa. All they want is a good life for them and their families. All they want is for this government to listen to them and their needs.
Western Sydney has waited long enough. It needs to be delivered. The Prime Minister and Minister King need to review the boundaries.
Stop asking Western Sydney families to put up with aircraft noise. They don't want earplugs or excuses. They want the free insulation this government promised them.