11th September, 2025.
By leave: I love hearing these speeches from both sides about what they deliver or do not deliver. It is fascinating. Western Sydney does not stop at Penrith, Leppington or Mulgoa. But one would think it does. Members are quite correct. We get houses, but we did not get the infrastructure until this term of government. We got the houses, and there are many of them there now. We have just seen the housing study. We have got double the number of houses being built in Camden at the moment, but we did not get any of the infrastructure, and that happened over many years. I am thankful to have such decisions as the one about the Wilton high school, which will be the first high school in my area since 1958. We have 30,000 new homes there, but where do these kids go to high school? They all have to travel a long distance out of the area. It is really poor. We will need more than one high school, so I will be pushing for that as well. But we actually had that discussion, and we are about to turn the dirt on a high school.
We are talking about the Picton bypass, which has been promised for about 30 years. We actually have pegs in the ground at the moment, they are doing core sampling and things like that. I am thankful that the Government is listening to the needs of the people of Wollondilly. While we have the houses, we need the infrastructure. Unfortunately, over the years, we had those houses given to us, especially in new growth areas like Wilton. We asked for a great new town or no town at all. We were promised one job for every house. That never happened. The problem is that it is more affordable for people to buy houses in our area but, when they get there, it is actually not affordable for them to live there because there is no infrastructure. I hear people talking about the metro and the railway and all the rest of it. We have these brand-new towns out there, and they were put there by the previous Government. It is not one side or the other that is the issue. Thousands of houses were put there with absolutely no public transport at all. What happens to these people when they go to work every day? They pay the tolls, are on the road for hours and not with their families.
We talk about health. I have Campbelltown Hospital in one direction and Bowral hospital in the other, about 70 kilometres apart. We do not have a cancer care unit for people out there. Aged people living in the southern end of my electorate have to travel so far to get medical help, and their families have to travel to visit them. Even that is an issue. We have three police buildings sitting in the main street of Picton, with no police officers in them. We need a new police area command. Today and yesterday we had rain. For Picton, Thirlmere and Tahmoor, when Stonequarry Creek floods, the ambos cannot get from the ambulance station in Picton across the one-lane wooden bridge to anybody on the other side. How long does it take for an ambulance to cover a 10- minute walk? It might take nearly an hour to get from one side to the other, because we do not have the appropriate infrastructure for the number of houses we are getting.
Who in this day and age would think to have a new development with no sewers? We are having the sewage trucked out every day. When we talk to Sydney Water, we get a different story every time. I was told Sydney Water will give sewers for the 4,000 extra homes going in there, but 3,000 of them are actually on the ground as we speak, and the sewage gets trucked out. Regarding transport, as members know, the Maldon-Dombarton railway corridor runs through the middle of this huge population. It has sat there for years and years, but the infrastructure has never been completed. I am really lucky to be having discussions with the roads Minister, not only about the Picton bypass but also that the State roads come up to my boundary and stop and, on the other end of the electorate, start again. We have been really lacking the infrastructure. I am glad to now be having those discussions, but I need to see delivery. I have gone well over my time, but we have been neglected for a long time, so I will vote with the Government on this. I appreciate what it has done.