Planning Minister Pru Goward has sent a stark message to Sydney’s established garden suburbs, warning if you live near a train station, be prepared for more density. If you want ready access to jobs or public services? Be prepared for more density.

It won’t only be Parramatta and Liverpool that feel the squeeze, the leafy north shore is also in her sights. Sydney is set for another 1.6 million residents by 2031 and the new planning minister says some of them will ”absolutely” be living near you.

“You can’t live in one part of Sydney and demand that you be in a little oasis of a garden suburb and yet demand that there be greater economic growth because you want job opportunities for your children,” Ms Goward said. “We all have to share the burden, as well as the benefits, of growth.”

It is a message that she applies equally to regional NSW, the inner city and Sydney’s west. But Ms Goward faces a tougher sell in some former planning battlegrounds, such as Ku-ring-gai, where density is still a dirty word. ”You can’t start exempting the north shore,” she said. ”We’ve all got to take our share.”

The MP for Goulburn – who took on the planning portfolio a month ago after a bruising run in community services – comes ready to argue growth’s fairest path is compromise.

“Planning is about trade-offs,” she said. ”It is about balancing competing interests. There is no right answer; it’s the answer that the community is prepared to live with, and often the answer is the least-worst option.”