In a continuing series, in the leadup to the 25 March election, we publish the answers we received from candidates on important questions. Word limits were set for the answers.

Top 3 issues facing our electorate? How will you work to address them?

Dr Tonia Gray, The Greens

Climate Change is the most pressing issue confronting our coastal communities. It threatens our homes, coasts, infrastructure, health, environment and future. Kiama is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and weather events energised by warmer oceans.

There is no middle road when tackling this crisis. 

We must rapidly reduce greenhouse pollution and plan to protect our community from climate impacts.

The Greens will implement an orderly transition out of coal and gas and work towards net zero emissions by 2035. We will proactively plan to prepare for more hostile climate and develop local adaptation strategies to protect our vulnerable community. 

Blue Haven represents 45 years of Council investment in its community. I support community ownership of this iconic complex because we need aged care services we can trust where our elderly feel secure. The hallmark of society is how well they treat their elderly and their vulnerable.

Bonaira and Terralong self-care units generate income for Council, but the nursing home is financially unsustainable. Regardless, I feel our nursing home is worth fighting for because community ownership is important and encourages volunteers, puts people first and is more accountable. 

The residential care industry lost $1.7 billion last year and is broken due to poor Federal and State planning and lack of funding. I will work tirelessly to secure funding and fix this broken, defective and shattered system. 

Local Planning – The State Government has bypassed Council and ignored the local community by pushing through large scale developer driven housing estates at Golden Valley Road Jamberoo, Campbell Street Gerringong and South Kiama near the High School. 

I believe there are more appropriate places where urban expansion can occur without impacting on our beautiful landscapes or sterilising fertile farmlands.

The 18-hectare Bombo State Rail Quarry has been suggested for medium density housing and could be ideal for affordable and social housing partnerships. Developments like this, can be initiated by our Council. 

The Greens will stop the push by both Labor and Liberal to take the ‘local’ out of local Government. We will return important planning decisions to local government allowing communities to decide how their local areas grow and function.

Top 3 issues facing our electorate? How will you work to address them?

Gareth Ward MP, Independent

Cost of living: I am committed to government policies that help ease the cost of living pressure for locals.

I will continue to fight for support for pensioners and self-funded retirees. Self-funded retirees and part-pensioners need fairer and better recognition when considering eligibility for government programs and supports.

Whilst I strongly support energy rebates, we also need to ensure that government policies don’t increase costs or taxes. Whilst I support cleaner energy, we need to ensure this doesn’t come at a higher cost to households.

The Active Kids and Creative Kids Rebates ensure families have support to encourage happy and healthy young people. We have terrific local sporting clubs run by hard-working local volunteers and these rebates make sport and artistic pursuits more affordable for local families.

I backed the $250 travel card for local trainees, apprentices and uni students. These supports help young people with the rising costs of getting the education and training they need to secure the future of their dreams.

Delivering vital infrastructure: I’ve worked hard to secure more than $1 billion for health infrastructure which will see a major upgrade of Shoalhaven Hospital and a new hospital at Shellharbour.

Importantly, these hospitals will come with more doctors, nurses and staff.

This comes in addition to major boosts to the budget for the Illawarra-Shoalhaven Health Service and the expansion of medical services.

In addition to more than $2 billion secured to provide life-saving upgrades to our Princes Highway, I have also secured more than $60 million in the last three years to support local councils repair their local roads.

Stopping over-development: I love our community and want to protect its environment and character.

I believe that people should have a greater say in the future of our urban environment and I believe that too much planning power has been centralised in the hands of bureaucrats in Sydney.

I am committed to instigating planning reform that ensures that people have a greater say in how our community grows. It is critical that growth occurs alongside essential infrastructure rather than retrofitting after the event.

Top 3 issues facing our electorate? How will you work to address them?

Katelin McInnerney, Labor

I am proud of the comprehensive plan we have for a fresh start in NSW and you can find our full plan here: www.freshstartplan.com.au

But for me, the top three issues are:

Fixing our Education system:

12 years ago the current government inherited a world-class education system – our students’ ranked 3rd in the world in Science, 6th in reading, and 9th in maths – now we are 23rd, 24th and 31st respectively.

This is as a direct result of the current government’s deliberate underfunding of our public schools.

Our kids are facing merged classes, or worse, classes with no teacher out the front at all. 40% of teachers in the our electorate are employed on rolling temporary contracts, making it impossible to put down roots locally

Only a new Labor government will rebuild our local schools by:

• Making 10,000 existing temp teachers permanent.
• Reducing the administrative burden on teachers by 5 hours a week - restoring teaching time.
• Building new schools in fast-growing areas and fully funding existing ones.
• Paying our teachers properly.

Repairing our health system: Whether I’m speaking to exhausted workers doing extra shifts due to chronic staff shortages, or to locals who waited hours to be seen by in our EDs only to leave in frustration - it is clear that our health system is in deep crisis.

I am proud that Labor has a plan to repair our hospital system by:

• Hiring 1200 additional nurses
• Hiring 500 additional rural and regional paramedics
• Waiving HECS debt for health workers
• Mandate safe staffing levels in our hospitals.

Fixing local roads: In 2019, the current government promised to reclassify and transfer 15,000 km of roads from local councils to the state government. In the four years since then, they have not taken over a single kilometer of regional roads and have broken the promise they made to our community.

A new Labor government will create an Emergency Road Repair Fund and invest $670 million to make sure the local roads we rely on every day are up to scratch.