Mr HOCKEY(10.35 p.m.) —It is fortuitous that the member for Kingsford-Smith (Mr Brereton) is in the chamber at this moment because he is the person most responsible for Badgerys Creek airport. It is about time that the member for Chifley (Mr Price) and the member for Prospect (Mrs Crosio) faced up to the fact that the existing policy of the Australian Labor Party is to support Badgerys Creek. How can you sit there and shake your heads when you have the member for Kingsford-Smith, who was the person responsible for Badgerys Creek, walking out of the chamber? You have been sold out by your own party. You are not prepared to front the facts that the hands of the Australian Labor Party are all over Badgerys Creek. The absolute hypocrisy of the ALP in this instance—

Mr Slipper —It's breathtaking.

Mr HOCKEY —It is breathtaking. The Badgerys Creek option is going to provide 63,000 jobs in western Sydney—63,000 jobs that did not exist under the Labor Party; 63,000 jobs that will provide opportunities for the people of western Sydney. I want to know what the real position of the Labor Party is. Is it the position that Bob Carr has adopted, which seems to flip-flop? On 25 March 1995, on the night of the state election, Bob Carr pledged on television in black and white—for those people who do not have colour televisions—that the Australian Labor Party would deliver to the people of Sydney the Badgerys Creek airport option. Bob Carr, the Premier of New South Wales, said that.

Yet more recently we have had the New South Wales planning minister, Craig Knowles, come out and say, `Well, the Labor Party has never been really committed to Badgerys Creek.' But that is hypocrisy only at a state level. Let us find out how the members for Chifley and Prospect squirm at the fact that the existing policy of the Australian Labor Party is to support Badgerys Creek.

Before the last federal election, the Australian Labor Party went to the people of western Sydney and said, `No, we are not even going to have another EIS, we just want to build Badgerys Creek.' The member for Kingsford Smith, the former Prime Minister, Mr Keating, and the current Leader of the Opposition, Mr Beazley, were out there promoting to the people of western Sydney and to the people in the Sydney basin the prospect of having the second international airport at Badgerys Creek. In fact, they said they had started work and that they had spent $360 million on Badgerys Creek.

Mr Slipper —What have they done with it?

Mr HOCKEY —It has the most expensive signage in Australia's history—there is a $360 million sign saying, `We are going to build an airport here.'

Mr Slipper —I suppose the MUA are mates with the signwriters.

Mr HOCKEY —It must have been the MUA that was doing the signwriting at the time. But it goes one step further. As soon as the Liberal Party went to the people of Sydney and promised that we would have a second international airport but said that, just in case, we would have a second EIS on Badgerys Creek, the Labor Party said, `What a great idea. We will take that idea but we are still going to build Badgerys Creek.' The Labor Party have said that when the heat is turned on, but this is after having made numerous promises to the people of Sydney that they would build Badgerys Creek. They announced it in 1985 but, in fact, the original proposal goes back to the 1970s. As Alan Ramsay revealed quite bluntly in the Sydney Morning Herald some time ago, `The ALP has announced on numerous occasions that it was going to commit to the second international airport at Badgerys Creek.'

The member for Prospect stands up here and waffles on with the gross hypocrisy that is typical of someone who is flip-flopping between airports and flip-flopping between policies on airports. How is she going to explain to the October meeting of the Labor Party that she wants a change to a policy that has been in existence for some years? The members for Prospect and Chifley have been promoting western Sydney for years, but now they are going to try to flip-flop back in the interests of self-gratification. At the end of the day, the people of western Sydney are the big losers because the Labor Party is lying, lying and lying again.