You can’t believe anything Labor says about railway lines in The Hills, Member for Castle Hill Michael Richardson warned today following Kristina Keneally’s reannouncement of the North-West Rail Link.

”I wouldn’t bet so much as a dollar on Labor ever building the North-West Rail Link,” Mr Richardson said.

“This is the seventh time Labor has announced the line. It’s been announced, scrapped, announced, scrapped, announced, scrapped, reincarnated as a Metro from the City and finally replaced with the CBD Metro.

“It simply isn’t going to happen under Labor.

“By the time Ms Keneally’s promise is fulfilled, children starting school this year will have almost finished University

“Many children born in 1998 – the year the Government first promised to complete a line from Epping to Castle Hill – will be parents themselves by 2024, when Ms Keneally says the line will be completed.

“The new Premier hasn’t even committed to starting work on the line until 2017 – that is, halfway through the Parliamentary term after the next.

“If she were fair dinkum about this line she would be starting work this year, not in seven years’ time.

“Are there any passengers on the ghost train apart from the corpses of Premiers past?’

Mr Richardson said he was also bitterly disappointed by the decision to scrap the Parramatta-Epping link.

“Carlingford residents have once more been left out in the cold,” Mr Richardson said.

“The line to Epping would have revitalised Carlingford, as well as providing direct access to the thousands of jobs in Macquarie Park and North Sydney.

“The Hills Shire Council needs to rethink the Carlingford Precinct Plan in the light of this announcement.

“It’s the Labor Government that has been insisting on 7000 extra people being shoehorned into the area around Carlingford railway station.

“Now that same Labor Government has scrapped the line to Epping the plan should be null and void.”