Duty MLC for Wagga, Wes Fang has slammed the mayor of Waverly for her "jaw-dropping" comments at a recent NSW Legislative Council Hearing.
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Mr Fang said Waverly Mayor Paula Masselos, a member of the Labor Party, had suggested Wagga forfeit its bus services to supplement her local government area (LGA).
"It is jaw-dropping that you would have the labor mayor of one of the wealthiest areas in Sydney suggesting that rural and regional communities should forfeit their public transport services to supplement the seven square kilometres that she presides over," Mr Fang said.
Mr Fang said Ms Masselos made the "suggestion" in response to a comment he had made.
Ms Masselos said Mr Fang's comment was made during her submission to the NSW parliamentary inquiry into bus privatisation with "respect to Waverley and not the NSW regions".
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Ms Masselos said Mr Fang's comment was "inappropriate" and her responding comment was made in irony as she felt he hadn't grasped the importance of the point that she was making.
"The real heart of the issue is not about a metro area's service being reduced in favour of bolstering a regional area," she said.
"It is about whether there are enough services and capacity across the network, irrespective of location, to meet service guarantees and accommodate travel needs," she said.
"Playing Waverley off against Wagga was not only inappropriate, it was not in accordance with the general line of our submission and questioning."
Wagga City Council labor councillor Dan Hayes said a comment made by a mayor of a Sydney LGA during a legislative council hearing is not a submission and not something the government would be considering.
"I really call upon Wes Fang to move off of cheap politics and really start advocating for his area," Mr Hayes said.
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