Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon visited Lapstone on Sunday, August 21 to meet with community groups and Greens council candidates about the ongoing campaign for high speed rail instead of a western Sydney airport.
Leaders of Residents Against Western Sydney Airport (RAWSA), No Badgerys Airport, and the Blue Mountains Conservation Society discussed the next steps for a campaign that has wide support in the Blue Mountains.
“The Greens are the only parliamentary party that opposes the second airport,” said Senator Rhiannon
“Greens politicians will work with the communities and councils of the Blue Mountains and western Sydney to oppose this unnecessary and damaging project.
“We would also like to work with parliamentarians from other parties who have concerns about the airport plan.”
Don Morison, President of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society, said: “The economy of the Mountains is built around quietness. Our tourists come for quiet activities - bushwalks, health massages, meditation retreats and so on. Twenty-four hour jet noise will destroy this.”
Andrea Grieve, an accountant and committee member of No Badgerys Creek Airport, said, western Sydney has a $95 billion economy. “The claims that the airport will add another $2 billion are neither here nor there compared to the costs to our health and welfare systems from increased respiratory illnesses and deaths, and the loss of productivity from constant noise, pollution and gridlocked roads.
Joel MacRae, Greens candidate for Ward 3 and an economist, said: “There are smarter, cleaner and more efficient ways of boosting investment and jobs growth in western Sydney.
Greens candidate for Ward 4 Kate McConville said: “Three quarters of the current air traffic at Mascot is domestic and mostly on the east coast. High speed rail along our eastern seaboard would absorb 40 per cent of Mascot’s air traffic.”
