Western Sydney gets $70m housing boost

0:00Next to us, $70 million will be poured into housing projects across the state in a bid to build homes faster. The Prime Minister made the pledge while sharing his vision for Western Sydney's future ahead of the opening of the city's new airport. Chris Mar has the details. Well, here at the soon-to-be-opened Western Sydney airport, the Prime Minister has announced a funding boost to speed up new housing and other development in the region. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Sydney's West today for a conference dealing with major issues confronting its population. Hosted inside the new terminal of the Western Sydney airport, opening to passengers later this year to boost housing construction, the Prime Minister announcing a $70 million grant to the state government to cut through red tape. These are incentives to get vital new housing projects through planning and into construction. But the conference was warned with the airport opening Sydney's West is in desperate need

1:04of extra hotel rooms, development plans, it said being held up in slow approval processes. Let's slow the threshold, let's fast-track the applications and let's get keys in hotel rooms. The New South Wales Premier was quizzed about the airport's metro rail link was unable to confirm when it will actually open and the airport's operators say they've been encouraged by their partner airlines about early ticket sales ahead of the first flights later this year.