26th March, 2025.
I speak in debate on the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment Bill 2025. Like all members, I understand the crisis in housing affordability and supply, but I will explain why I will not support the bill. My electorate of Wollondilly covers the council areas of Wollondilly and Wingecarribee. We already have housing approved, and subdivisions are ready to have lighting and roads built but there is no appropriate infrastructure. I am not talking about high schools, transport or hospitals. None of those things are there, but there are no sewers. In this day and age, in newly approved and ready-to-go developments, sewers are still being trucked in each day and the people who have purchased the land continue to wait as their housing contracts time out. They then have to negotiate new contracts with higher prices.
I am concerned on many levels about the need for new housing developments. The process and expense of getting development applications through is difficult, even after a planning proposal is approved. There is also the drip feed of required reports on everything from heritage to environment, which have often already been submitted with planning proposals. Funnily enough, areas like Cumberland Plains do not cover developers' land but mums' and dads' land. The delay costs money not only for developers but also for builders and people who are just trying to build a home. Some areas in my electorate are covered by State environmental planning policies which is stopping secondary dwellings being built because of the new airport. Some are 30 kilometres away from runways and others are on over 10 hectares, where people were told they could build only one house. That house could have 10 bedrooms, but they were not allowed to build more than one two-bedroom home. That is not funny in a housing crisis. Even though planes are about to start flying from the new airport residents still do not know their flight paths.
At a higher level, the bill is not about good planning. They only reason we are seeing development in the area is because developers see a financial opportunity. This housing development may be in the middle of nowhere. When families finally live there, they may not be able to afford to stay as there may be no transport to jobs or it half their income may go to paying tolls to get to work. I have seen governments promise infrastructure that looks wonderful on brochures and prospectuses, but it never comes. Approval time frames for development applications are being cut short for areas where the risk of flooding or bushfire would normally be considered in full, but only the stakeholders who live there really understand those problems. The Government feeds us the line of cheaper housing for essential workers, but worries about the future are being overlooked because a developer is ready to go.
New inhabitants of affordable housing deserve the areas to have all the appropriate infrastructure, not to be second class. The proof for me will be in the pudding. Previous governments of both persuasions have done this, and residents are still waiting. We have affordable housing that people cannot afford to live in. The other concern I have is the slow, staged release of portions of developments. While developers may argue it is all about cost, I believe it is about maintaining a short supply. Anyone who has done high school economics knows that if supply is kept short, increasing demand pushes up the price. I have questionable development applications for my electorate that are yet to be approved. I have other approved applications where no building can happen because there are no essential services, such as sewerage. In other developments, people have to travel for hours and pay tolls to get to work or high school or, heaven forbid if they get sick, wait for an ambulance to take them on a long trip to get to medical services. Thousands of houses also have no police station.
While I appreciate the tack the Government is taking with the bill of delivering shorter consultation time and speeding up processes, why is it not talking about infrastructure and getting Sydney Water to deliver the necessary services so that these homes can be built and lived in? Why is money also not being put into the areas where these developments are located instead of into other regional projects? I would like to see developers forced to release all their stages so that there is a bigger supply in the market at one time, stopping them from keeping prices as high as they are. There is a lot of action that can be taken, but I am concerned about the amendments that are being put forward in the bill. I want housing in my area but with infrastructure. It is not just about increasing housing supply. It is also about building homes that have services and jobs where people can afford to live and be happy. At this point I cannot see the bill delivering those things for my community.