GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Ms AMBIHAIPAHAR (Barton) (13:20): The people of Barton have spoken, and they have three priorities: local infrastructure, the economy, and the cost of living. I'll use this grievance debate to outline these key priorities and the action residents need. The first is local infrastructure.
In our dense Sydney community, people travel the same routes every day and repeatedly confront unsafe intersections, potholes, rat runs and truck hazards. Many of these issues fall to the state and local government, but I will keep advocating on them and ensure that we have a champion to make sure we have the funding support. The juncture of Bexley Road and William Street in Clemton Park and Earlwood is widely regarded as one of the area's most dangerous intersections.
Turning onto Bexley Road means navigating blind spots on a very busy road, with residents repeatedly reporting near misses, including those involving buses and other vehicles. Nearby we have Clemton Park Public School, which brings a lot of school traffic, buses and young pedestrians together at peak times. The community has raised this for many years, yet it remains unresolved.
We need an engineering review and serious investment now, not after a preventable injury. Forest Road and Stoney Creek Road are also among Barton's busiest arterial roads and corridors, and Bexley residents are paying the price. One survey respondent said the issue has divided the community, whilst others say the traffic is completely out of control.
Congestion and unsafe conditions disrupt school drop-offs, endanger pedestrians and block access to local businesses. Excess traffic spills into the residential run-off, while high tolls leave motorists little choice but to stay on congested local roads. Successive state and council governments have failed to resolve this issue.
As another resident said, the neighbourhood is 'drowning in trucks and pollution,' and residents deserve proper traffic modelling and meaningful investment. We need to prioritise safety around the Goodstart Early Learning centre in Carlton and South Hurstville. Vehicles speed past the Carlton centre near Planthurst Road and Park Road, whilst the South Hurstville centre on Woniora Road lacks adequate crossing support.
Toddlers and preschoolers arrive and leave at the busiest times, and parents and educators face an obvious daily risk. The community has petitioned for action. Georges River Council must provide traffic support, particularly around calming, signage and safe crossing, before someone gets seriously hurt.
I can't fix this overnight, but these are definitely on my list, and I will advocate for them at every opportunity. The second issue is the economy. Residents already face rising costs of fuel, housing and electricity, and the proposed data centre at the former Kogarah golf course has sharpened concerns.
Overseas experience shows the strain that data centres can place on communities, and households rightly fear higher bills, while a private development consumes vast amounts of power and water. The concept plan was valued at up to $2.8 billion, including more than 25,000 square metres of data centres, warehouses, logistics facilities, hotels and offices. Buildings of up to 70 metres are proposed besides the Cooks River and residential neighbourhoods.
This state-significant development raises serious concerns about scale, noise, height variations and about placing a power- and water-intensive industrial facility beside homes, including introducing pressure on the Cooks River. I do not want to say that we must block development full stop. After all, we live right next to Sydney airport.
And I can certainly see the need for logistics and storage capacity as well as an increased number of homes so close to a major employer and service hub. After all, our Barton community has grown and evolved because of its close proximity to Sydney airport, but that doesn't mean that the future growth should not be well-considered, balanced and with residents at the heart of its planning.
The community deserves genuine consultation, strong safeguards and transparency, not vague assurances and closed-door decisions. I welcome the federal government's mandatory national standards requiring data centres to add as much renewable energy to the grid as they consume and pay their share of network upgrades. Households must not subsidise private industry developments.
I have raised concerns with our state member—Stockland and John Boyd Property—and will keep pushing to ensure that local communities do not wear the cost. Again, I want to reiterate that I understand the importance of data centres in our country. We must store Australian data on Australian soil.
As Assistant Minister Charlton puts it: Imagine if our banks, our hospitals and our government systems all depended on computers sitting in another country. All our data, offshored to the lowest bidder. Most Australians would rightly ask: why are we trusting someone else with something so important?
That's not independence. That's dependence. So you will not find me as a NIMBY naturally but, instead, I will always be championing for considered development that puts community first, development that makes our economy and society much stronger, and any proposals must be put to the people first rather than the developer's bottom line.
Finally, there is the cost of living. I'm proud of the targeted relief we have delivered, including $25 medicines, higher bulk-billing rates across the community and greater support to help first homebuyers enter the housing market. But the closure of the Kingsgrove Post Office demonstrates one pivotal and deeply frustrating truth: too often, profit is still being put before the people.
The closure proceeded despite a petition with more than 250 signatures and a united community campaign. Practical alternatives, including streamlined post services nearby, were not properly considered or pursued. Older residents and culturally and linguistically diverse communities have been hit particularly hard.
They cannot simply be told to go online or travel further for a trusted local service, and Kingsgrove has already lost too much foot traffic, most of its banks and its hardware store. Removing the Post Office strips another essential service from the town centre and hurts local businesses. Worse, Australia Post failed to consult before finalising this decision.
This is unacceptable. Residents must be consulted early and honestly before future cuts are considered. One resident put it perfectly when they said, 'Locally, I'm seeing shops that have been in Kingsgrove for over decades and survived COVID closing'—example: two greengrocers—'leaving much less choice for residents and forcing people to travel further away and spend more on the transportation to buy and do things that we used to be able to do locally.' The petition calls for no further Post Office closures, and that demand must be taken quite seriously.
Communities are not line items to be cut wherever a balance sheet demands it. Essential services must put people first. Across all three priorities, Barton residents are asking for the same thing: to be heard, to be respected and to be put ahead of buck passing and private profit.
They should not have to wait for a tragedy before dangerous roads are fixed, carry the costs of poorly planned development or fight to retain essential services. These are reasonable demands, and local and state governments and corporations must stop treating them as optional. I'll keep taking these concerns to every level of government, pressing for answers and demanding action until Barton communities receive the safety, the fairness and the respect they deserve.
Sitting suspended from 13:29 to 16:00