The first Climate 200-backed independent candidate expected to win a seat at the NSW election claims voters in her electorate are frustrated by overdevelopment on Sydney's urban fringe.
While the AEC is yet to call the seat, the ABC is predicting Judy Hannan will win Wollondilly, after an 8.7 per cent swing towards her with just over 60 per cent of the votes counted.
Ms Hannan will replace former Liberal incumbent Nathaniel Smith, who was elected to the seat in 2019.
Ms Hannan said the region had been crying out for critical infrastructure to accommodate tens of thousands of homes set to be built in the growth corridor, but the government had not listened.
"There are loads of issues but certainly the overdevelopment with no infrastructure and being taken for granted by political parties [a key issues]," she said.
"We have two high schools in the whole electorate, which is as big as the Sydney metropolitan area.
"Can you imagine two high schools in the whole of the Metropolitan Sydney?"
Calls for 'sustainable development'
Wollondilly Council accused the previous government of "ramming through" plans to build 57,000 homes in the Macarthur Growth Corridor.
Work has begun on 15,000 new homes in Wilton where Wollondilly Mayor Matt Gould estimates there is an infrastructure deficit of half a billion dollars.
Ms Hannan, a former Mayor of Wollondilly Council, said the new NSW government needed to change its approach to planning.
"We need to look at development in a different way, we need to make sustainable development," she said.
"We don't want the tiny little houses with thin streets and black rooves everywhere.
"We do need development, but it has to be done very differently — not large developers coming in and land banking and squeezing every inch they can out of the land without any infrastructure."
The Wollondilly councillor was courted by Gladys Berejiklian to run as a Liberal in the 2019 election, before the Liberal Party preselected Mr Smith.
Teal label 'political propaganda'
Ms Hannan is the first independent candidate with the backing of the Climate 200 organisation expected to win her seat.
However she moved to distance herself from the "Teal" label.
"I'm called everything, I'm called Teal, I'm called Liberal," she said.
"It is just political propaganda."
She said Simon Holmes à Court's election fund offered support to her campaign, but she has not taken money from them.
"I never got any money from Climate 200," she said.
"I got some strategic planning and some filmmaking, which was brilliant."
"I am just for the people of Wollondilly and they are who I am going to work really hard for."
