Mr NATHAN HAGARTY (Leppington) (21:15): If members drive through Austral at school pick‑up and drop‑off time, they will not need a planning report to tell them that something went wrong somewhere in the past. Cars bank up along narrow roads that were never designed to carry this volume of traffic. Parents push prams along dirt verges where footpaths should exist. Children stand on the roadside waiting for buses that are already at capacity. Growth is visible everywhere—new rooftops, new estates and new families. What is missing is the infrastructure that should have accompanied that growth.

The challenges facing Austral are a set of interrelated consequences from rapid population growth without the matching infrastructure investment. The most acute example of this is what is happening to our school students. Buses are full and children are being left on the kerb because there is simply no room. Parents are forced to step in and drive, adding even more cars to already congested streets. That congestion then flows through to Fifteenth Avenue, the main arterial road out of the suburb. Since 2018, Austral Public School has experienced a kindergarten enrolment growth of more than 300 per cent, which is the highest growth of any public school in New South Wales. It remains the only public primary school servicing the immediate area.

For too long, housing approvals were not matched with the timely delivery of public school capacity. Catchment boundaries now stretch beyond the suburb, forcing many students to travel outside Austral for their education. That travel demand translates directly into pressure on buses and roads. Even students who live close to school are often driven. This is not only because bus services remain tight but also because safe and continuous footpaths are missing and because Liverpool City Council has failed to upgrade local roads in line with development. Families should not have to choose between contributing to congestion or allowing their children to walk along unsafe, unfinished verges.

At the start of each new school year, these pain points intensify. As growth increases so does the student population, and this year is no different. Increased enrolments place immediate strain on bus services. These pressures are not just the result of the past few years; they are the legacy of 12 years of neglect under the previous Liberal-Nationals Government when development surged ahead without coordinated delivery of schools, roads or public transport. Communities like Austral expanded without the infrastructure being sequenced alongside them. This Government came to office with a commitment to fix that imbalance, and it has begun that work.

I thank Premier Minns and the various Ministers for their cooperative, open-door approach. They have been always receptive and productive in addressing the concerns of the Austral community. This work spans Roads, Education, Health, Transport, Planning and Local Government, and coordination across each of these portfolios is required. Critically, we are partnering with the Commonwealth Government on the $1 billion upgrade of Fifteenth Avenue—a transformational investment that will expand capacity, improve safety and provide the transport spine this corridor has long required, not only for Austral but also for Liverpool and the new Western Sydney international airport.

We are delivering upgrades to Austral Public School and Leppington Public School. We are delivering a new high school for Leppington that includes a selective stream, opening in 2027. We are expanding capacity at other schools across the electorate, including five new public preschools. I raised the issue of school buses directly with the Minister for Transport today, and I thank him for meeting with me to work through practical solutions. Importantly, we have already delivered tangible improvements. I have previously secured additional bus services for Austral. An extra morning service was added to route 861 in 2024, which services Austral Public School, Unity Grammar and St Anthony of Padua Catholic College. A dedicated afternoon school service for St Anthony's commenced last year, running between the college and Carnes Hill. This year, additional services have been added to service Rossmore Public School, Hoxton Park Public School and surrounding areas.

Those measures have provided relief, but they also demonstrate how underlying growth pressures continue to test capacity. Austral's challenges are interconnected—school capacity affects bus demand, bus demand affects road congestion and road congestion affects safety. Footpath gaps affect whether children can walk to school. Each problem reinforces the other. The solution must be coordinated. Infrastructure investment must be coordinated and it must match growth, rather than piecemeal responses after pressure builds. We have done a lot, but there is more to do. Austral is not asking for special treatment; it is asking for infrastructure to match the approvals already granted and the levies already paid. We must ensure that children are not left waiting on the kerb and that growth is supported by the schools, roads and services that a modern community deserves. I thank the Government for its work.