Let's face it, can we afford and cater for a larger population when there is no public transport after Bomaderry Rail Station, terrible intersections on highways and through communities, and not least the lack of employment opportunities.

The Shoalhaven hospital has approximately 130 bed capacity and that can't accommodate the population we have now in the Shoalhaven.

The current state government is failing every day to increase our bed capacity as well as the nurse to patient ratios required. It doesn't fill one with certainty for the future when the present is in a dire situation.

Before any future developments occur in the Shoalhaven and South Coast, all levels of government should be looking into what infrastructure should be in place for a larger population.

Better Public Transport.

Better public hospital that can cope with the growth with beds and staff.

Better Public Schools.

Safer roads that aren't lined with crosses.

Renewable Energy to combat the effects of climate change.

There may be more people wanting to come here but we should also do a survey to tell us how many people leave the Shoalhaven area because of hardships caused by the lack of infrastructure in our communities, especially in outlying villages.

Look into the future.

The Sydney Desalination Plant was sold by the Coalition on a 50-year lease on June 1, 2012.

The main focus of the contract centred on the condition that the operators maintain the plant to be fully operational, if and when needed.

Prior to the sale, Sydney Water operated the Sydney Desalination Plant under its regulated 70-80 rule: "Sydney's desalination plant will operate at full production capacity when the total dam storage level is below 70 per cent, and will continue until the level returns to 80 per cent."

The 70-80 rule applied from day 1. The plant ran at full capacity (250 million litres/day) from February 2010 until December 9, 2011 when Warragamba Dam storage level reached 80 per cent.

The water supply was then reduced to about 90 million litres a day. The plant ceased production on July 2, 2012. This is the only time the desalination plant has benefited Sydney ratepayers.

Since then the SDP been a total disaster with not one drop of water produced until January 27, 2019 for water testing purposes (disinfecting pipes).

The plant is expected to be brought online (full production 250 megalitres a day) sometime in November 2019.

Water storage reports record: on June 1, 2018 the water storage level Warragamba Dam measured 70.7 per cent capacity, at later reading on June 29, 2018, the water level had dropped to 69 per cent.

What did the government and the licensee/owner do to relieve this critical water shortage-absolutely nothing.

It is safe to say the desalination plant should have been readied to start pumping, 250 million litres/day (7.5 billion litres a month) in June 2018. It wasn't.

The plant will not be optimised until November this year.

Because of government ineptitude Warragamba Dam has been deprived of roughly 141 billion litres of drinking water.

Now the double whammy, with the dam at 49.9 per cent capacity the government has commenced pumping from the Shoalhaven catchment, an event that was not supposed occur until the Sydney level fell below 30 per cent.