SENATOR THE HON JAMES McGRATH

SHADOW SPECIAL MINISTER OF STATE

SHADOW MINISTER FOR URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE AND CITIES

SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE OLYMPICS AND PARALYMPICS

SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND

ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL GROWTH AREAS ALLIANCE

2026 NATIONAL CONGRESS

Broadmeadows Town Hall, Hume City Council

**CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY**

6 August 2026

Thank you, Mayor Docherty, for that very generous introduction.

Can I acknowledge the Mayor of Hume, Councillor Carly Moore, and thank Hume City

Council for hosting us here in Broadmeadows.

I also acknowledge the Chair of the National Growth Areas Alliance and Mayor of

Gosnells, Terresa Lynes; NGAA Chief Executive Bronwen Clark; mayors, councillors,

chief executives and council officers and industry representatives.

It is a pleasure to join you for a Congress focused on the competitive advantage of

growth areas.

That is exactly the right framing.

Too often, the national conversation treats growth areas as a problem to be managed:

places where governments must somehow fit more houses, absorb more people and

respond to mounting pressure.

But Australia’s growth areas are not a problem.

They are one of our greatest national assets.

The growth areas you represent are home to six million Australians, including one in four

Australian children.Your councils are expected to deliver more than 300,000 new homes by 2029.

And they are home to 2.5 million workers across manufacturing, construction, freight,

logistics and other industries that keep our economy moving.

So when we talk about the future of Australia’s housing supply, productivity, industrial

capability and social cohesion, we are talking about the communities represented in

this room.

You are not on the fringe of the national economy.

You are at its centre.

Yet the infrastructure experience of families living in growth areas tells a very different

story.

I know that NGAA’s own work shows that residents of growth areas have substantially

less access to public transport, health services, education, and sport and leisure

facilities than residents of established metropolitan areas.

Those figures you present are not abstract.

They mean a parent driving further to a medical appointment.

They mean children growing up without a local swimming pool, library or sporting field.

They mean workers spending more time in traffic and less time with their families.

They mean councils trying to build the facilities of a city while still carrying the revenue

base of a developing suburb.

And they expose a basic failure in the way governments have planned for growth.

For too long, Australia has released land and approved housing first, then argued about

the supporting infrastructure later.

We have treated public transport, schools, health services, community facilities and

open space as optional additions rather than essential foundations.

That approach is unfair to new homebuyers, unfair to existing residents and unfair to

local councils.

There is no point congratulating ourselves for building more houses if we are also

creating communities where people cannot easily get to work, find a doctor, play sport

or access basic services.

Housing policy cannot be separated from infrastructure policy.

And good housing policy requires good cities policy.That is why I welcome NGAA’s place-based investment framework – planning and

investing before the house, with the house and after the house.

It is a practical description of what governments should already be doing.

A lot of this planning and delivery work is not the responsibility of the Commonwealth.

But the Commonwealth does have a key role to play here.

It has a responsibility to provide national leadership, coordinate investment across

governments and help unlock projects that otherwise fall between jurisdictions.

The former Coalition Government’s City Deals showed what is possible when the

Commonwealth, states and local councils sit around the same table, agree on a shared

plan and commit to clear priorities.

Across Australia, City Deals coordinated billions of dollars in investment across all

three levels of government.

They were not perfect, and the next generation should be more ambitious.

But their central principle was right: major urban challenges cannot be solved by one

level of government acting alone.

I am looking at how a future Coalition Government could build on that model with a

stronger focus on suburban and outer-urban Australia.

The name matters less than the outcome, but as I talk to people I’ve been calling them

Suburban Deals.

These would be long-term, place-based partnerships focused on the areas facing the

greatest population and housing growth.

They would bring together the Commonwealth, state governments, councils,

communities and the private sector around an agreed regional plan.

They would identify the infrastructure needed to unlock housing, support local

employment, lift productivity and improve quality of life.

And they would start with local knowledge.

Councils understand where the bottlenecks are.

You know which road intersection is holding back a housing precinct, which sporting

facility is already at capacity, where industrial land needs better freight access and

which community is waiting years for a library or aquatic centre.

The Commonwealth should not arrive with a pre-written list of projects and ask councils

to endorse it.It should work with you to build the plan from the ground up.

It’s why I’ve made a point of meeting with as many local councils as I can across our

growing regions.

We also know government budgets alone cannot finance every piece of infrastructure

our growing cities need.

But government can create the certainty, coordination and enabling conditions that

allow other capital to participate.

This is particularly important in growth areas, where early infrastructure investment can

unlock housing and employment at scale.

The Commonwealth must also get its own house in order.

Cities policy should not be isolated from the department responsible for planning and

delivering infrastructure.

Moving the cities function away from the Infrastructure portfolio has fragmented

responsibility and weakened national leadership. This is not just my opinion, I hear it

from councils and industry representatives everywhere.

We also need to recognise that productive cities are not simply productive central

business districts.

Most Australians who identify as living in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth or

Adelaide live in the suburbs.

Most metropolitan jobs are also outside the CBD.

The objective should be to make it easier for families to live, work and play closer to

home.

That means creating the conditions for employment growth.

It means ensuring freight and logistics precincts can function properly.

It means planning for data centres and new industries without losing sight of energy,

water and network constraints.

It means connecting workers to jobs across suburbs, not simply funnelling every

commuter towards the centre of the city.

And it means understanding that a sporting precinct, aquatic centre or library is not

decorative infrastructure.

These facilities strengthen social cohesion, support health and wellbeing, create local

jobs and help new communities develop an identity.That is why the priorities you have raised matter.

The aquatic facility sought by Gosnells.

Regional sporting and recreation facilities in Casey and Cardinia.

Sporting precincts in Cockburn and Wanneroo.

Better rail connections in south-west Sydney so communities can share in the benefits

of Western Sydney International Airport.

And the many libraries, community centres, playing fields and local facilities needed

across every growth council represented here.

These projects may be local in location, but their consequences are national.

When infrastructure is delivered late, housing is delayed, congestion grows, productivity

falls and people lose trust in government.

When it is planned early and delivered well, growth becomes an advantage.

It creates jobs, attracts investment and gives young families confidence that the suburb

they move into will become a place they are proud to call home.

That is the real opportunity before us.

The Coalition is working as a team to develop the policies we will take to the next

election.

One of those we’ve already announced is a $5 billion housing infrastructure fund to

unlock new housing estates. I’m sure every council here could tell me of housing

developments in your region being held up because the essential infrastructure just

hasn’t been delivered.

Together with red tape reform, the $5 billion housing infrastructure fund will save up to

$70,000 on the cost of building a new home and unlock 400,000 homes across

Australia.

Angus Taylor, who was the architect of our City Deals policy in government, has tasked

me to work closely with Shadow Housing Minister Andrew Bragg in this area.

I am here to say that we are listening.

We believe Australia needs a long-term urban vision, not a collection of short-term

announcements.

Your advocacy is helping shape that work.

NGAA has built a strong national case that growth areas are not merely where

population growth happens.They are where Australia’s future is being built.

Our task is to ensure that the infrastructure, services and opportunities arrive with that

future – not decades after it.

Thank you for the work you do, thank you for the frank advice you continue to provide,

and I look forward to working with you as we develop the next generation of Coalition

cities and suburban policy.

Thank you.

ENDS

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