Exposing the con in WestConnex

Just what Sydney needs: more tolls, more traffic, more money for big business. The NSW government’s WestConnex project is steamrolling ahead despite widespread opposition.

WestConnex will add 33 kilometres to Sydney’s roads over the next seven years. To pay for it, the government is continuing in a long tradition of public-private partnerships – make the public pay, and make the private company rich. Money has poured out of state and federal coffers, but facing a total cost of $16.8 billion, the state is also selling our highways back to private toll-road operators.

Reporting in the Sydney Morning Herald, Jacob Saulwick has covered much of the fiasco that is WestConnex and its funding scheme. In April 2014, he revealed a final draft of the WestConnex business case. Tolls on Sydney’s M5 were set to end this year, once it reverted to public ownership. But the O’Farrell government extended tolling for another 44 years. The M4, which runs from the Western outskirts of Penrith through Parramatta, has been toll-free for six years. When the road is expanded as part of WestConnex, working class commuters will be paying $4 each way.

The government’s own figures predict that higher tolls on motorways will push another 20,000 cars onto cramped main streets.

Tony Abbott said in March last year that drivers will be “singing in their cars” at the reduced travel time. But Saulwick says the government’s own figures predict that higher tolls on motorways will push another 20,000 cars onto cramped main streets like Parramatta Road. Don’t expect singing so much as swearing.

The development will also be a disaster for Sydney’s inner west. The Herald reports that hundreds of houses have already been acquired by the state government. Community activists from the anti-development WestConnex Action Group (WAG) told CityHub that residents who stayed to defend their houses in April were arrested and charged with trespass.

Opposition to WestConnex was a key part of a 29 May protest against NSW premier Mike Baird. Up to 5,000 rallied against the Liberal premier’s huge development contracts, increased police powers and anti-protest laws. “Having eliminated all organised governmental opposition, he plans to give the green light to WestConnex”, said former mayor Darcy Byrne.

Byrne was referring to the forced amalgamation of local councils across Sydney. Baird has replaced the elected councillors with “general managers” who cannot be voted out until September 2017. Ashfield, Leichhardt and Marrickville councils have been merged into the Inner West council. Residents argue this is a political manoeuvre to ram through WestConnex without debate. “[This] represents the NSW planning culture of rubber-stamping disastrous projects and putting the interests of big business above ordinary citizens”, said spokesperson Pauline Lockie in a WAG press release.

The first meeting of the new Inner West council on 24 May was disrupted by residents and dismissed councillors. The general manager was forced to leave. ABC news reported that he was “spat on and pushed by angry residents” – a lesson in democracy for a hapless technocrat.

Unfortunately, commuters and communities won’t find a solution to developer rule from the Australian Labor Party, which supports the project. Some inner city Labor MPs, such as Anthony Albanese, are under pressure to criticise it, facing off against Greens candidates who are opposed to the whole project. Yet the Daily Telegraph says that the member for Grayndler told them on 30 May that “he would not interfere with loans that had already been signed off on, which included the whole current funding agreement”.

Mike Baird is committed to building WestConnex, come hell or high water. Speaking to Leigh Sales at Luna Park on 3 July, he brushed off concerns that the project will ruin lives. “Any change will be resisted”, he said. “People don’t like it at all.” Rubbish.

There are plenty of changes that people in Sydney would love to see: a fully subsidised train and bus system that doesn’t shut down with the first drop of rain; transport options for the western suburbs that come more than once an hour; toll-free roads; free parking in the city; trams.

These things cost money, but so does WestConnex. We will need to fight much harder if we want to force the government’s hand and win the right to our city.

When Sales asked about the thousands protesting against him, Baird replied, “The moment a government stops listening, you’re in trouble”. Let’s hope so.