Jackie Kelly calls Abbott government ‘lying, lying, lying toads’
Former Liberal minister says go-ahead for Badgerys Creek airport treats western Sydney residents ‘like schmucks’
Jackie Kelly resigned from the Liberal party two weeks ago over its failure to reform.
Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP
Former Liberal minister Jackie Kelly has referred to the Abbott
government as “lying, lying, lying toads” for betraying western Sydney
on the Badgerys Creek airport.
Kelly, the Howard government star who resigned from the Liberal party two weeks ago
over its failure to reform, has accused her former friend Tony Abbott
of treating western Sydney residents “like schmucks” just “so the north
shore can get their curfews”. Tony Abbott’s electorate of Warringah is
on Sydney’s north shore.
In his first infrastructure statement to parliament this week, Abbott
said the decision to go ahead with Badgerys Creek airport was
“irrevocable” and would be supported by a range of infrastructure,
including roads and rail.
“That’s a crock,” Kelly told Guardian Australia. “They are lying, lying, lying toads.”
“They haven’t planned for it, there is no money on the table … Badgerys Creek will be a 24-hour airport mostly for freight.
“It will put even more trucks on our roads. The north shore can get
their curfews but we schmucks in western Sydney don’t deserve caps and
curfews. We deserve better representation.”
Kelly said a Badgerys Creek airport would not attract “cheap
airfares” because it would mainly cater to freight and so western Sydney
residents would still have to trek into Mascot to fly out.
She said she has had many people asking her to run as an independent
in the next federal election but she has ruled it out at this stage.
However, Kelly committed to helping the No Badgerys Creek Airport group
run candidates and a campaign at the federal election, and she believes
the group will garner enough support to tip seats away from the
government.
Kelly resigned from the party over its failure to implement reforms
in the Howard report on party reform, in which John Howard recommended
every Liberal party member be allowed to vote for local candidates.
Kelly has not spoken to Abbott since her resignation from the party
but said he knows her views because she has been saying it “inside the
party” for many years.
“The difference is now I can say it outside the party,” Kelly said.
Abbott, who campaigned on being the “infrastructure prime minister”,
told parliament this week the government had begun consulting with the
Sydney Airport Group on Badgerys Creek and the construction would begin
in 2016. He said an upgrade of Bringelly road and the WestConnex would
support the Badgerys Creek airport to give western Sydney the “modern
infrastructure it deserves”.
“It’s the centrepiece of our long-term vision for western Sydney –
and heeding past lessons, it will be a case of roads first, airport
second: the roads will be built before the first plane has landed.”
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