MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (15:39): Essential services must serve the public first. Private involvement should only occur where there are clear public-interest tests, transparent KPIs, enforceable obligations and real accountability. Too often, governments have treated essential services as commercial transactions and assets and then see opportunities to sell off these assets to improve their bottom lines rather than focusing on the long-term public responsibility to ensure that they are there.

Communities then pay the price through poorer services, less transparency and decisions driven by private return rather than public need, and the lesson is clear. Essential services and public assets must not be sold, outsourced or contracted away without clear and lasting public benefit and public interest tests. Whilst I hear the member for Indi around the serious concerns and impact in regional Australia around essential services, it happens everywhere.

Clear examples in Warringah we have under this government include the live issue of the proposed partial divestment of HMAS Penguin, a Defence asset, public land held on trust by Defence for the Australian people, not to be sold off to improve this government's bottom line. I don't support the partial divestment of this site. It continues to deliver critical Navy capability, including clearance diver training and underwater medicine.

The community deserves transparency about what is proposed, what capabilities may be moved and what the true cost benefit assessment shows. HMAS Penguin is a public asset for public benefit. That means protecting the Angophora bushland, retaining public ownership wherever possible and, if existing buildings are released, prioritising genuine social affordable housing, not luxury apartments.

I've lodged Freedom of Information requests seeking that detail, but it's being objected to. The government cannot speak about rebuilding institutional trust while withholding environmental and cultural impact assessments under national security interest grounds. Worse still, they don't even look like they're undertaking such assessments until after the divestment of public land is announced.

Another example is the Northern Beaches Hospital. Northern Beaches Hospital was a project of the former New South Wales Liberal government's public-private agreement and completely failed to deliver the integrated, high-quality public healthcare our community was promised. For years patients, families and staff raised serious concerns about safety, standards, integration with the broader health system and working conditions, and this tragically had devastating consequences for some families.

The New South Wales Auditor-General confirmed that many of the concerns and the commercial imperatives should never have come ahead of patient safety, clinical outcomes or staff wellbeing. That's why the move to return the Northern Beaches Hospital to public ownership was so important. I acknowledge the strong advocacy of my independent colleagues at state government, Michael Regan, the member for Wakehurst, and Jacqui Scruby, the member for Pittwater, and the many community members who shared their difficult experiences.

Public healthcare must be publicly accountable. Safe, high-quality healthcare should be designed around patients and staff, not around a private contract. Finally, transport—our bus service again was privatised.

We see the same problem there in Warringah. The privatisation of the Northern Beaches bus network has not delivered the reliable service our community needs. It's not about unfairly blaming individual operators or drivers.

Keolis Downer is dealing with real workforce pressures including driver shortages, but this is an essential service. Public transport has been contracted out, and now we have a question around that accountability. The NSW Government must be accountable for that outcome.

Our community has dealt with cancelled services, unreliable timetables, road congestions, ageing infrastructure and limited public transport options for too long. We need more services, transport and drivers and a serious long-term plan to address the transport issues of the Northern Beaches. That includes workforce solutions to recruit and retain bus drivers and investment in road and public transport infrastructure, including upgrades identified through the Northern Beaches Network Review.

Now that's a whole other topic when you think of all the tunnels and the transport infrastructure that's occurring in the Sydney area which is all privatised and is causing major issues. I've written to the minister for immigration in this place to request a dedicated specialist visa pathway designed specifically for bus drivers to help fill some of the workforce shortages so we can have some semblance of public transport on the lower North Shore where we have no rail transport.

Public transport is an essential infrastructure, and the public interest should be coming first. The common thread is accountability. There has to be accountability and public interest, and they have to be put first where there is privatisation.