Greater Western Sydney

Report

The planning, construction and management of the Western Sydney Airport project

This inquiry report finds that the purchase of the Leppington Triangle land for the Western Sydney Airport project has breached the social contract between the Commonwealth and the public, by not providing any clear value for money and by creating arbitrary differences between landholders with...
Conference paper

The loss of peri-urban agricultural land and the state-local tensions in managing its demise: the case of Greater Western Sydney, Australia

This study examines the drivers of peri-urban agricultural land loss in Greater Western Sydney (GWS), one of the fastest growing peri-urban regions in Australia, and on the particular contribution of government planning policy and resultant tensions between state and local government decision making.
Conference paper

Cities within a city in Sydney

This paper analyses the urban divide in Sydney from urban planning perspectives in the framework of critical philosophies by applying a qualitative research method of documents analysis and semi-structured interviews.
Conference paper

Increasing resilience to climate change in the Western Sydney region: an analysis of local council strategies for climate, health, and wellbeing

This research aims to identify how the eight councils have addressed climate risk and resilience, and to determine the barrier and enablers to planning, implementing, and evaluating related strategies across the Western Sydney region.
Report

Report on public hearing 13: Preventing and responding to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation in disability services (a case study)

Public hearing 13 examined the experiences of a group of people with disability living in disability residential accommodation in western Sydney provided by a non-government disability services provider, Sunnyfield Disability Services.
Journal article

Why would a woman screen? Facilitators and barriers for women least likely to participate in cervical screening in Australia

This study aimed to gain insight into factors influencing cervical screening among women from a area in Western Sydney characterised by disadvantage and ethnic diversity, and which has one of the lowest participation rates in the National Cervical Screening Program.
Report

Future directions: ways forward for the economies of Blacktown, Cumberland, Parramatta and The Hills – the Central City District of Sydney

The report examines the economic trajectory of the Central City District economies of Western Sydney in the boom years prior to the COVID-19 recession.
Report

Advancing LGBTQ+ safety and inclusion

This report details the findings of an 18-month long scoping study, informed by local advisory group established by ACON, into a range of LGBTQ+ needs and experiences in Greater Western Sydney.
Report

The impact of surface cover and tree canopy on air temperature in Western Sydney

Increasing summer temperatures and urban development in Western Sydney present key challenges for contemporary planning. This research shows that increasing the area of hard surfaces and buildings leads to warming while increasing the area of open spaces and tree canopy leads to cooling.
Report

School microclimates

Based on empirical data collections, this report provides more than twenty practical recommendations on how to reduce the impacts of outdoor heat.
Report

Older women in the private rental sector: unaffordable, substandard and insecure housing

Single older women aged 55 and over are over-represented amongst the asset poor in Australia and are one of the fastest growing groups of homeless people nationally. This report presents the experiences of single older women living on low incomes in the private rental sector...
Report

Benchmarking summer heat across Penrith, New South Wales

This report documents variation of summer temperatures across Penrith, in Western Sydney. Between 14 December 2019 and 31 March 2020, more than 1.4 million measurements of air temperatures were collected using 120 data loggers.
Report

Cooling common spaces in densifying urban environments

This research takes up the challenge of promoting a new approach to thinking about urban liveability in warming cities, with two principles at its core. First, asking how open space can be planned for ‘coolth’ defined as the experience of feeling manageably comfortable in a...
Report

Where are the jobs? Part 2: The geography of Western Sydney’s jobs deficit

This second of three reports analysing jobs availability in Western Sydney examines the geographical outcomes of high rates of workforce growth and the decline of manufacturing.
Report

Where are the jobs? Part 1: Western Sydney’s short-lived jobs boom

This report analyses key shifts in the Western Sydney labour market in the context of rapid population growth. It positions Western Sydney’s labour force growth and change against 21st century shifts in the region’s economic structure.
Report

Where are the jobs? Part 3: Western Sydney workers in 2036

This report examines what will happen in the Great Western Sydney region over the next twenty years.
Report

Home is where our story begins

This report explores the experiences of LGBTQ people in CALD communities in Greater Western Sydney following the same-sex marriage vote in 2017.
Report

Newstart, poverty, disability and the National Disability Insurance Scheme

This research shows it is often an experience of poverty, with disability exacerbated by an inability to afford essential medical items or appointments or the need to meet obligations to retain Newstart.
Report

Benchmarking heat across Cumberland Council, New South Wales

This report examines microclimatic variation across the LGA of Cumberland Council, New South Wales. During the summer of 2018/19, more than 1.4 million individual measurements of air temperature were recorded at 97 locations in and around the LGA. Our data analyses revealed that communities living...
Report

Benchmarking heat in Parramatta, Sydney's Central River City

The compounding effects of climate change and rapid urbanisation cause cities to heat up. The City of Parramatta in the central region of the Greater Sydney Basin already experiences extreme summer temperatures and heatwave conditions on an annual basis. This report describes microclimate across the...
Report

Community education providers and Western Sydney regional economic development: expanding capacity and contributions

Community Colleges Australia has produced this report for the NSW Department of Industry, with the aim to ensure that the NSW government can use the capacity of Western Sydney not-for-profit community education providers to support that region’s economic development priorities.
Report

Bringing industry to airports: how the U.S experience can help Western Sydney to take off

Industry clusters are seen as critical to economic growth and national competitiveness in the United States. This report examines areas of future high-tech export potential and gives recommendations for how to encourage the emergence of industry clusters focused on aerospace and defence, food and agribusiness...
Article

Australia’s great urban experiment

When is an airport not just an airport? Western Sydneysiders are in the process of finding out.
Report

Circles of social life, Liverpool

This report was commissioned by the Western Sydney Migrant Resource Centre to understand the basic issues concerning the settlement of migrants and refugees, including examining resettlement supports for migrants and refugees with disability. The report applies the Circles of Social Life approach, which offers an...
Report

Heatwatch: extreme heat in Western Sydney

Increasing extreme heat will have profound impacts on people, industries and ecosystems in Western Sydney. CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology projections estimate that the average number of days over 35 could increase by up to five times without strong climate policies from a historical average...