New South Wales Labor says it will commit $430 million to fund the first stage of a re-development of Sydney’s Westmead Hospital.
It will include a new emergency department, up to 14 new operating theatres and extra beds.
The funding will come from Labor’s infrastructure plan announced on Thursday, which involves delaying business tax cuts to help pay for $10 billion worth of infrastructure without selling off the state’s poles and wires.
Flanked by the Labor candidates for Parramatta and Granville, James Shaw and Julia Finn, Opposition leader Luke Foley said many of the existing facilities at Westmead Hospital are rundown, temporary or ageing.
“This is one of the most important and busiest hospitals in NSW (with) 67,000 presentations at the emergency department last year,” Mr Foley said.
“The Liberals have allocated a mere $5 million for planning around this development, and of course any commitment they announce in the campaign will be conditional on the privatisation of the state’s electricity network.”
Labor said population projections indicate an additional one million people living in western Sydney by 2031.
Mr Foley said the election promise was an iron-clad guarantee and that it was good news for people in western Sydney.
“A major upgrade of the a 35 year old hospital that is showing its age and we won’t sell the state’s electricity network,” he said.