By Parramatta Advertiser, 5 April 2010

Deputy Lord Mayor Chiang Lim has accused the Federal Government of ignoring Parramatta’s “growing pains” in its State of Australian Cities 2010 report.

The 161-page Infrastructure Australia report is intended to provide a national snapshot of 17 cities with populations of more than 100,000 but fails to include Parramatta.

Cr Lim said as Parramatta was the nation’s sixth largest CBD, had a catchment of 500,000 more residents and 34 per cent more office workers living within a 15km radius of the CBD than Sydney, it exceeded “every one” of those parameters.

In a letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Cr Lim said: “The absence of any mention of Parramatta in your report is either an accidental oversight or a deliberate assumption that Parramatta does not need any further attention from the Federal Government at least from an infrastructure perspective.

“It is my sincerest hope that the Rudd Government is able to fully appreciate Parramatta and its growing pains.”

The failure to include Parramatta in the report - which has a population of 143,143 and is expected to grow to 161,008 by 2019 - was a “complete mystery”, Cr Lim said.

“I wrote the letter in the hope that we could have a better understanding about why we were missed,” he said.

“Is it because there is a shift in Federal Government policy?”

He said there were key pieces of infrastructure which should be provided including the promised Parramatta to Chatswood rail link and the west metro.

Cr Lim said it was predicted a new suburb would be created in western Sydney every year for the next three decades and there needed to be more affordable housing to cater for this increase.

“All these things are not answered,” he said. “We are just confused and perplexed.”

A spokesman for Infrastructure Australia said Parramatta was not looked at individually because it was seen as a part of Sydney.

“If it should be separated out, we are more than happy to look at that suggestion,” he said.

Prime Minister Rudd’s office did not get back to the Advertiser before press time.

Click here for the original article from the Parramatta Advertiser.

Click here for Deputy Lord Mayor Clr Chiang Lim's media release.