Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've often said in this House that I'm very proud to represent the largest electorate in the nation by the number of enrolled residents, with over 140,000 people calling Macarthur home. These are not small numbers, and they only continue to grow as a south-western Sydney continues to be developed and developed and developed. Overdevelopment is severely affecting our region. It is having a major impact on the quality of life and the quality of services and infrastructure that current and future residents rely upon. For example, Oran Park experienced a nearly 16 per cent increase in its population between 2021 and 2022, with over 20,000 people currently living there. Going back to the 2016 census, we can see that approximately 4,700 people resided in Oran Park at that time. So there has been a massive increase in population, all of which was understood to be happening and planning authorities knew how many housing blocks were being sold. They should have prepared for the population growth—they didn't.

I want to reiterate that I have no issue with new suburbs being built. Housing shortages are a real concern, as we all know. Rather, the concern that many of the residents of Macarthur and I have, including those in Oran Park, is the lack of infrastructure and public services to accommodate the various health, educational, economic, policing, environmental and other needs of these communities. The lack of green space in newer suburbs is a major concern, and, for many individuals and families, a simple grass park surrounded by homes with very few trees and one or two barbecues that don't work doesn't quite cut it. Residents are beginning to realise that perhaps the services and infrastructure that were promised, or that one would assume would be built, may not come at all.

An example of this was when local families started their own action group to have schools built in the newer suburbs of Gregory Hills and Gledswood Hills as they realised government was failing them and their children. These suburbs, located near Oran Park, had a combined population of 7,000 in 2017. By the end of 2022, the population had grown to almost 20,000. By mid-2022, Gledswood Hills Public School had hit double its enrolment capacity, and countless demountable classrooms were being dumped on this site. On top of that, due to poorly designed roadways and traffic management problems, many families and carers, as well as bus drivers, experience hazardous driving conditions during drop-off and pick-up times at our local schools because there's no room for parking. This is in an area that has virtually no public transport. This is an experience shared by parents in Oran Park, which has a very dangerous pick-up and drop-off zone with over 40 demountable classrooms and no deployable, usable playing fields. Unfortunately, previous governments did not seem to recognise this issue.

Our local group, known as the Gledswood Hills/Gregory Hills Needs A High School action group, has over a thousand social media members and strongly advocates for building schools in its suburbs on appropriate footprints, which isn't happening. I'm very proud of these local mums, dads and carers for advocating hard for the Macarthur region, but governments have ignored them. Governments have ignored the needs of Appin Road, which is a very dangerous road, with over 20 deaths in the last couple of decades. It is getting busier and busier, with large trucks coming from Wollongong, but there has been no action to improve that. A massive suburb is being developed in an area just to the south of Appin by the Walker Corporation with no infrastructure. It was developed with no infrastructure plan. Only now, after the approval of the development, are they thinking about what infrastructure can be put in. Developers have shown themselves not to be trusted.

Since 2016, when I was elected, there has been no movement on appropriate infrastructure. A rail link to Western Sydney Airport from Leppington in Macarthur has been denied, despite it being vital to the success and accessibility of that airport to my electorate and particularly the newer suburbs. Unfortunately, most of our calls, even since I've been elected, have fallen on deaf ears. I am very frustrated by the lack of action, and for this reason I am calling for a royal commission in New South Wales into planning and development, particularly in the newer growth areas, because I think there has been too little political action to provide adequate infrastructure and that too much has been given to developers to do what they want.