Tuesday, 17 March 2026

 Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (13:14): I have really enjoyed the hundreds of conversations I have had with Donnybrook residents over the last few weeks. Everybody there, including me, is looking forward to stage 1 of the Donnybrook Road upgrade kicking off. It is in preconstruction at the moment with site investigations, planning approvals and the like, and we are looking forward to seeing that move ahead. I cannot help but reflect, as we are in here, that we hear about the Liberal housing policy of rushing development in the outer suburbs. Donnybrook came into existence through a stroke of the pen of those opposite, with zero dollars of funding for infrastructure, and now they want it to go even faster. Our government has taken the sensible approach of spacing out the new estates in the outer suburbs and making it so that developers need to make sure that that supporting infrastructure is there before more lots are opened up for housing, because we have listened to what people want in the outer suburbs. Those opposite have made it very clear: they do not care. They do not care about us in the outer suburbs. Rush, rush, push the housing, no money for infrastructure, and it is back to the beginning with the Liberals. We have seen this from them before, and we are at risk of seeing it again if they come back into government.