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Former Howard minister defends Labor preference deal in Penrith

NSW election 2015: Former Howard government minister Jackie Kelly directs preferences away from Liberal Stuart Ayres in fight over Badgerys Creek airport




Former Howard minister defends Labor preference deal in Penrith

NSW election 2015: Former Howard government minister Jackie Kelly directs preferences away from Liberal Stuart Ayres in fight over Badgerys Creek airport

25 Mar 2015,

Former Howard Government minister Jackie Kelly says her decision to direct preferences to Labor in the upcoming New South Wales election is not an act of betrayal, but a strategy to fight plans for Sydney's second airport.

Ms Kelly is running as an independent candidate in the western Sydney seat of Penrith in Saturday's state election.

In a move that analysts believe will hurt Police Minister Stuart Ayres' re-election hopes, Ms Kelly is directing preferences to Labor's Emma Husar over Mr Ayres.

Ms Kelly was the federal Liberal MP for Lindsay from 1996 until 2007, and served the ministry in several portfolios, including as parliamentary secretary to prime minister John Howard from 2001 until 2004.

She dismissed a suggestion the preference deal was the "ultimate betrayal" of her former party as "rubbish", but said the Government had failed to listen to residents' concerns about the airport.

"Everyone in western Sydney, every council in western Sydney, right across WESROC [Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils] - we're all opposed to the airport," she told 702 ABC Sydney.

"We got rid of it in 2004, it was done and dusted, and then suddenly after the federal election it just reappeared and it's going to be a done deal before the next federal election."

The Badgerys Creek airport proposal won Federal Government approval in April last year.

The federal and state governments have pledged to spend more than $3.5 billion on supporting infrastructure, with construction due to start next year so the airport can open in the mid-2020s.

If Ms Kelly is recommending preferences for the Labor Party, she is ... actively helping Labor win the seat. That's quite a betrayal of the Liberal Party that helped her into Federal Parliament.

ABC election analyst Antony Green

Labor's support for the airport is conditional on the application of a curfew.

Mr Ayres said the airport would support jobs and economic growth, provide a catalyst for development and ensure western Sydney was connected to the world.

"It's also advancing significant amounts of infrastructure, whether they be roads and rail, right across our community," Mr Ayres said.

"I think we've reached a point where our community recognises that there's lots of benefits.

"Does it come with some things that we have to continue to manage, particularly land use around the airport? Absolutely.

"But that's one of the reasons why we've created very, very strong exclusion zones around residential property, around those key areas that will be under flight path areas and allocating them to industrial and employment lands."


 














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