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Policies

As an independent, I represent the sensible center on policies.

In NSW, we have a minority Labor government, but I work across the political divide and give Pittwater a voice. I have regular meetings with ministers and government organisations.

I have a proven track record delivering for our community, driving legislation and delivering outcomes for constituents. 

I am working to deliver better infrastructure, better services, better representation on the things that matter to us, and of course, to protect our beautiful natural environment.

 

Jacqui Scruby

Funding Secured for Mona Vale Road: Election Promise Delivered

The NSW Government committed $250 million in the 2025–26 State Budget to complete the long-overdue upgrade of Mona Vale Road West.

This was a campaign promise I made to the people of Pittwater that I’ve been able to deliver. 

As your independent MP, I’ve worked across party lines and kept the pressure on to ensure this critical project gets the funding it deserves.

This is a huge win for Pittwater - achieved not through party politics, but by putting people first and applying consistent, evidence-based pressure on the government - even calling myself the 'MP for Mona Vale Road' in my very first speech to parliament. 

The unfinished Mona Vale Road is dangerous and congested, despite being a major artery in and out of the Northern Beaches, the access road to Northern Beaches Hospital and an emergency evacuation route in the event of fire. 

This funding from the NSW Government is in addition to the $250 million in Federal Government funding secured by Mackellar MP Dr Sophie Scamps earlier in 2025, bringing the total funding for the project to $500 million.

My focus now is monitoring delivery, pushing for transparency and community consultation, and ensuring the upgrade is built to the highest standards.

Timeline for delivery

Jacqui Scruby

Promise Delivered: Funding Secured for Mona Vale Road

Jacqui Scruby

Stop inappropriate development

Jacqui Scruby

Preserve our unique local character and stop inappropriate development

The Minns Labor government has introduced significant changes to planning laws to increase building density across the state. Our way of life is at risk from environmental recklessness and over-development. The peninsula does not have the road or public transport infrastructure to support growth, and we can’t risk losing the look and feel of our area through shortsighted policy. I am using my position to push back on inappropriate development in Pittwater. It’s more important than ever to have a strong voice for Pittwater. 

I am working to: 

  • Protect our urban centers from state-led planning changes to increase building height and density that ignore community views and go against best practice planning principles.
  • Prevent reckless housing developments in bushfire prone areas, particularly the Patyegarang development - known as Lizard Rock.
  • Work with Northern Beaches Council and the NSW Government to ensure strong local planning and zoning controls in our Local Environmental Plan.
  • Support local community to engage with the NSW Minister for Local Government to give the case for a council demerger fair consideration.

We can’t develop recklessly, but we do need more options for downsizing and more affordable housing on the Northern Beaches, especially for essential workers. Increasingly, teachers, bus drivers, childcare workers and cleaners can’t afford to rent on the Northern Beaches, let alone buy. This impacts all of us.   

I’m working to: 

  • Plan strategically for more diverse housing in the right places, including for downsizers and affordable housing for essential workers, consistent with the Northern Beaches Council’s Local Housing Strategy, which concentrates growth in Brookvale and Frenchs Forest. 
  • Ensure new developments are high quality and well designed, comply with the planning scheme and listen to community.
Jacqui Scruby

Cut cost-of-living pressures

Amid a cost-of-living crisis, we need responsible economic management that provides relief for families and businesses, without blowing out NSW’s debt and fuelling inflation. 

One of the biggest cost burdens on family budgets is the rising cost of home insurance, which has risen a staggering 32% since 2022 across the board, more for people in flood risk areas such as Narrabeen.

I’m lobbying the NSW Government to: 

  • Reduce stamp duty on home insurance and earmark any revenue raised to make our homes and communities more resilient to extreme weather events, to put further downward pressure on insurance.
  • Help households and businesses get rooftop solar, batteries, efficient electric appliances and electric vehicles to save money and cut emissions.
  • Hasten introduction of free pre-kindergarten to increase female workforce participation and unlock a greater economic potential for NSW.
  • Raise revenue from a progressive coal royalties scheme that captures the massive windfall profits - just like Queensland does - and reinvest those funds into programs designed to address the cost of living crisis. 
Jacqui Scruby

Cost of Living

Jacqui Scruby

Education, sports and community

Jacqui Scruby

Invest in education, sports and community infrastructure

Schools, sports clubs, surf lifesaving clubs and community organisations are the lifeblood of our community. We need the best possible facilities, infrastructure and services to keep us learning, healthy and connected. 

Right now, demand outstrips capacity of existing sporting fields and facilities, but there have already been a number of successes, including:

  • Funding for the replacement of the closed synthetic track at Narrabeen Athletics Track announced in the 2025/6 NSW Budget
  • Funding for a Creative and Performing Arts Centre at Narrabeen Sports High School
  • Upgrades at other local schools
  • Grants for local Surf Life Saving Clubs at Narrabeen and Bilgola
  • Increased funding to ensure schools get their allocated school resourcing standard.

  I will continue to work to: 

  • Meet the community need for sporting facilities, including expediting repairs or replacement of the synthetic track at Narrabeen, so it can reopen.
  • Invest in our local public school facilities, creating the best environment for our children and young people to learn and thrive, and deliver Narrabeen Sports High upgrades. 
  • Reduce the time teachers spend on administration, in line with recommendations from the Gallop Inquiry.
  • Better fund our community groups so they can deliver essential services to our community.
Jacqui Scruby

Protect our natural environment and minimise climate impacts

We need to protect Pittwater’s environment – and our state’s environment – so our children and grandchildren can enjoy it like we have.

I’m working to: 

  • Save our Pittwater urban tree canopy and increase state funding to manage invasive species, including noxious weeds, on the Northern Beaches.
  • Safeguard our coastline from worsening storms and inundation with effective climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. 
  • Conserve our natural and built heritage in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and Barrenjoey Headland.
  • Deliver the Great Koala National Park and end native forest logging.
  • Reduce plastic pollution by regulating plastic use and disposal, incentivising reduced plastic use and driving soft plastic recycling. 
  • Advocate for policies to deliver a stronger, cleaner economy powered by cheap Aussie solar and wind energy. 
  • Advocate for no new coal and gas projects in NSW.

I've got a strong track record in environmental protection. As an advisor to our federal MP, Dr Sophie Scamps and Zali Steggall MP, I've worked to improve the landmark Climate Change Act, drive a renewable economy through improvements to the Future Made in Australia policy and developed the Native Forest Pledge. In 2023 I co-drafted legislation to ban drilling for oil and gas off our coastline, which was adopted by the Liberal Party and then Labor and then passed into law.

Jacqui Scruby

Environment and climate

Jacqui Scruby

Small businesses

Jacqui Scruby

Support small businesses

I see every day how small and medium sized businesses are being impacted by reduced consumer confidence and rising rents and electricity bills. These businesses are the heart of our peninsula lifestyle. As a former small business owner myself, I am passionate about cutting red tape so businesses can easily hire workers and grow. 

I am working to: 

  • Review payroll tax – an inefficient tax that punishes businesses for hiring workers.
  • Increase incentives for employers to take on new apprentices. 
  • Incentivise leasing of high street shop fronts to keep our villages vibrant.
  • Properly fund Chambers of Commerce so they can grow, assist local businesses, and have an open line of communication into state government.
  • Change NSW procurement guidelines so the state government procures $10 billion worth of goods and services from small businesses each year, cutting the red tape that stops our government buying from us.
  • Advocate for small and medium sized business grants. 
Jacqui Scruby

Ensure world class public health services

Northern Beaches Hospital is operated under a privately operated for-profit hospital paid by the NSW Government to deliver services to public patients.  Its private operators Healthscope went into receivership in May. The NSW Government is currently in negotiations over the future of the hospital.

Many in the community hold serious concerns about cost cutting pressures, conditions for staff and the standard of care for patients at the hospital under the public private partnership, which was introduced by the former coalition government. There have been a number of tragedies at the hospital which have shaken public confidence. A recent NSW audit found the the hospital was failing to deliver.

I am pushing for the whole hospital, not just the public beds and services, to be taken into public hands.

What I have done:

  • Hosted public forum with the NSW Minister for Health and the NSW Treasurer with  Michael Regan, the independent Member for Wakehurst, which was attended by hundreds of community members and hospital staff.
  • Met staff, patients and families, regularly met with NSW Ministers for Health and Treasurer.
  • Lobbied for and promoted the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry.
  • Supported legislation - the Health Services Amendment (Northern Beaches Hospital Deed Termination) Bill 2025 - introduced by Michael Regan MP, which ensures that the Minister for Health can act if negotiations fail, protecting taxpayers from drawn-out legal disputes and excessive costs.

I continue to working closely with the NSW Government, my fellow MPs Michael Regan and Dr Sophie Scamps, the independent Member for Mackeller, staff and community members, to deliver the best outcomes for our growing community.

On broader health issues, I am working to: 

  • Expand public health services, including dialysis, at the old Mona Vale Hospital site and ensure it is never sold off.
  • Improve community based public youth mental health services on the northern beaches, including a Mona Vale Hub. 
Jacqui Scruby

Health

Jacqui Scruby

Transport

Jacqui Scruby

Deliver reliable, frequent and comfortable public transport services

On the beaches, buses are our only form of public transport. We plan our lives around these services, so we need them to be reliable.

Excellent public transport also helps reduce traffic congestion, benefiting everyone. But service reliability has suffered since the previous Coalition government privatised our buses and services were at crisis point when I came into office.

I have listened to the experiences of commuters and work closely with private bus operators, Transport for NSW and the Minister for Transport to make sure services are consistent, frequent and comfortable.  

After a recent campaign and consistent lobbying from my office, the NSW Government committed to purchase 60 new buses for the Northern Beaches and funding was allocated in the 2025/26 budget. The new vehicles are due to arrive at the end of 2025. Repaired 'bendy' buses are also returning to service over 2025.

In the meantime, I am pushing for services to the Northern Beaches to be prioritised.

I am working to:

  • Get operators to maintain and improve timetables.
  • Increase Keoride buses on the road to reduce over-crowding and wait times.
  • Hold Northern Beaches private bus operators to account, making sure they put the needs of the community first.
  • Ensure a driver recruitment and staff retention is addressed.
  • Support essential worker housing solutions on the broader Northern Beaches to help fix the bus driver shortage, which is one of the root causes of reliability issues and late notice service cancellations.

 

Jacqui Scruby

Pittwater's voice on NSW issues

As a society, we are faced with many social, economic and environmental challenges. The NSW Parliament is a place where these big issues are discussed, and law reform happens. As your voice in parliament, I listen to the hopes, values and aspirations of the people of Pittwater and represent you with integrity and vision. I use every avenue available to me to help make our state a better place for everyone.  

I am working to:

  • Curb problem gambling and money laundering through poker machines, starting with rolling out cashless gaming cards.
  • Conserve our biodiversity across the state by fixing land clearing laws and ending native forest logging to give koalas back their habitat and save the taxpayer tens of millions of dollars each year.
  • Establish an inquiry into forever chemicals and plastics in Sydney’s drinking water and supply chain if the government fails to take action.
  • Better regulate social media to protect our young people’s mental health.
  • Protect and support our children by increasing the criminal age of responsibility from 10 to 14 years old. 
  • Allocate more state funding for research into women and children's health issues that have been neglected, including endometriosis, lipoedema, premature ovarian failure, autoimmune diseases, menopause, ADHD and autism.
  • Support a vibrant and open Sydney, including arts and recreation, particularly for young people on the Northern Beaches, and to support our local businesses like The Joey!
  • Increase justice for animals, including ending greyhound racing.
Jacqui Scruby

Pittwater's voice on NSW issues

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