Mr ALISTER HENSKENS (Wahroonga) (18:25): The Wahroonga electorate continues to grow, and that comes as no surprise given that it has a fantastic community and is a great place to live, work and raise a family. With its strong sense of community, excellent schools and beautiful natural environment, surrounded by several national parks, our community continues to grow. With more people calling the Wahroonga electorate home, investing in our local infrastructure is more important now than ever before. Our growing community needs well-maintained roads, schools, hospitals and public spaces to maintain its quality of life. But no new local infrastructure investments are being made in our area, despite the changes to planning laws that will bring many more people. That is in strong contrast to the Liberal investments in our area under the previous State Government.

For example, NorthConnex was a major local Coalition infrastructure investment and a $3 billion project. NorthConnex has taken traffic, especially trucks, off Pennant Hills Road and returned that road to our community. Whilst there were concerns about air quality impacts before NorthConnex was built, mandatory independent air quality monitoring has shown much improved air quality at all monitoring stations, including nearest to the outlet at Wahroonga. Pollution has reduced rather than increased with NorthConnex, which is consistent with the prediction of the panel of international experts engaged by the independent NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer.

The Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital was substantially upgraded under the former Coalition Government. Improvements exceeding $400 million were made to the hospital, a car park was added, and over 200 additional doctors, nurses and allied professionals were added to the hospital staff. I am happy to say that Waitara Public School, which was incredibly crowded and cramped when I was first elected to Parliament, was almost completely rebuilt as a four-storey virtual school, following my advocacy, so that the expanded school population would have as much playground space as possible. All of the schools in my electorate have had their leaking roofs replaced and most of their toilets upgraded, science labs at Turramurra High School were improved and the wi-fi at Pennant Hills High School was upgraded, all under the former Government. More may have been upgraded at Pennant Hills High than I am aware of, because for most of that time it was in the electorate of Hornsby.

During my time in Parliament, every railway station in my electorate that did not have disability accessibility has been upgraded with lifts and the like. They received them under the former Coalition Government. That includes Thornleigh, Normanhurst, Waitara, Wahroonga, Warrawee and Killara railway stations. Those upgrades are so important to people with disabilities, seniors and young families. In addition to the accessibility upgrades at Waitara station, it received platform weather protection and new car parking—all by the Liberal transport Minister, after I made the case for their inclusion in the costs of works as both necessary and cost effective. I also advocated strongly for the other lift upgrades and school improvements. The Pacific Highway was upgraded under the former Coalition Government, with the intersections of Finley Avenue, Fox Valley Road and Redleaf Avenue all being included. Again, I worked closely with the Liberal transport Minister to achieve those upgrades.

That impressive record has not been matched during the past two years. The talent of the Minns Government seems to be to cut ribbons on former Coalition Government projects like the metro, but not to make infrastructure investments within our State. Without improving my community with much-needed investments in transport, education and health, how is the Minns Labor Government expecting that we take on a significant increase in population, which is already underway? Investing in infrastructure is not just about meeting our current needs; it is about planning responsibly for the future. Our population is growing, and we will have more demand on our public services than ever before. I urge the Minns Labor Government to meet any increase in population in my electorate with significant investments in our roads, schools and hospitals. The State Government has a duty to the people of our State to ensure that infrastructure investments continue during this Government.