NSW Greens Housing spokesperson and Member for Newtown, Jenny Leong MP has called out the failure of the NSW Liberal budget to address systemic housing issues while talking up a $3.9 billion surplus.

“It is meaningless for the Premier to identify homelessness as one of her priorities if she is not willing to invest to actually address the housing crisis in our state, especially when the budget surplus this year is $3.9 billion.”

NSW Greens Member for Newtown Jenny Leong MP and NSW Greens Member for Balmain, Jamie Parker MP condemn the NSW Liberal budget which boasts a $3.9 billion surplus but fails to deliver on basic community needs or crucial priorities for the state.

Responding to the NSW Budget, Jenny Leong MP said:

“The Liberal’s budget speech did not mention climate change once and that’s indicative of the thinking behind this budget – it’s one that could have been written in the 50’s with massive funding for private toll roads and a failure to recognise the real needs of the community, she said.

Greens NSW MP and Transport Spokesperson, Dr Mehreen Faruqi MLC and Greens NSW MP, Member for Newtown and WestConnex spokesperson, Jenny Leong, have reacted to the NSW Budget announcements on funding for WestConnex, the F6, Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link.

Greens NSW Arts Spokesperson Jenny Leong MP has written an urgent letter to the NSW Arts Minister Don Harwin calling on him to immediately explain the significant delay in decisions for the December 2017 Create NSW grants round.

“It is unacceptable that there has been such a delay in the announcement of the Create NSW December 2017 funding round leaving artists and creatives in the lurch,” she said.

The latest WestConnex leak regarding the cost and time blow out of the WestConnex New M5 shows the urgent need for full transparency regarding this now toxic project, says NSW Greens spokesperson on WestConnex and Member for Newtown, Jenny Leong MP and Dr Mehreen Faruqi MLC and NSW Greens spokesperson on Transport.

In response to the latest shameful rubber stamping approval of the next stage of WestConnex the Greens are urging the NSW Upper House to support the call for all papers relating to the sale of WestConnex.

Jenny Leong MP Member for Newtown and NSW Greens spokesperson on WestConnex:

“We know NSW Labor and the cross benchers are concerned about the lack of transparency and accountability of the Liberal/National Coalition when it comes to state infrastructure and their privatisation agenda which is why we are urging them to support the Greens Call for Papers to release all documents related to the tender and sale of the Sydney Motorway Corporation.

Responding to the latest reporting today on the NSW Government’s Local Allocation Strategy which shows that hundreds of innocent people may be excluded from accessing public housing in the inner city, Greens NSW Housing and Homelessness spokesperson Jenny Leong has questioned the motives of such a move.

“Given the recent fudging of the public housing waiting list numbers by the department, we are calling on the Minister for Family and Community Services to immediately reassure the public that this latest ‘strategy’ isn’t a cynical ploy to further reduce the waiting list without actually housing anyone.

Today’s release of the statistics on Homelessness from the ABS 2016 census data, shows that homelessness and other consequences of the lack of housing affordability are rising unacceptably in NSW, according to NSW Greens spokesperson on Housing and Homelessness and Member for Newtown, Jenny Leong MP.

The Liberal government has pushed ahead with privatisation of bus services in Sydney’s Inner West, with an announcement that the contract has been awarded to Transit Systems. Commenting on the signing Jenny Leong, MP for Newtown says:

“There has been a huge groundswell of people in the inner west demanding the buses are kept in public hands.

“Many people in the inner west don’t own a car and rely on buses as a primary mode of transport. This is an essential service that should be kept in public hands.

NSW Roads and Maritime (RMS) has released a huge but vacuous document responding to the 13,000 submissions about Stage 3 of WestConnex, including from other Government departments and local councils.

“It is extremely alarming that so many serious concerns about this project have been not been responded to in an adequate manner, said Jenny Leong MP, Greens Member for Newtown.

“There were 13,000 community submissions against this plan including detailed objections from the EPA, NSW Health, the City of Sydney and the Inner West Council – reading through the hundreds of objections and the flimsy responses is shocking.