Kirrawee, NSW 2232

Family-oriented suburb in the Sutherland Shire, 25 km south of the Sydney CBD, lying between Sutherland to the west and Gymea and Grays Point to the east. The name is thought to come from an Aboriginal word for 'place of white cockatoos' and was adopted in 1939 with the opening of the Sutherland–Cronulla railway line; almost all housing south of the line is residential while North Kirrawee is a commercial and industrial zone, and the suburb keeps a village, community feel with painted murals around the station and Oak Road shops. Kirrawee is one of the Shire's fastest-growing centres: its population grew 18.6% between 2016 and 2021 to 11,007, the largest age group is 30–39, and in 2021 66.2% of homes were owner-occupied in a suburb of mostly couples with children. It sits minutes from the Royal National Park and bushland, at the edge of the Shire's town-centre renewal around South Village Kirrawee.

At a Glance

Transport

Kirrawee railway station, in the suburb's centre, is on the Cronulla line of the T4 Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra network, linking the southern suburbs to the CBD — Kirrawee was one of Sydney's last single-platform stations until the Sutherland–Cronulla line was duplicated — and the station is served by a 150-space commuter car park. Two local U-Go Mobility bus routes pass along President Avenue near the station, and the suburb is about 25 km south of the CBD by road.

Schools

Kirrawee Public School — NSW government primary school. Kirrawee High School — NSW government comprehensive high school that opened in February 1966. Gymea Technology High School also lies on Kirrawee's outskirts, and the suburb has a number of preschools and childcare centres.

Universities

The University of Wollongong's Southern Sydney campus is in the immediately adjacent suburb of Loftus, which borders Kirrawee to the west (Loftus's eastern edge runs along the Princes Highway corridor). The campus — at 1 Pitt Street, Loftus, beside Loftus railway station and TAFE NSW's Sutherland College — is a joint initiative of UOW, TAFE NSW and Sutherland Shire Council, and was renamed UOW Sutherland in 2025 as part of UOW's campus rebranding. It is only a few minutes' drive from Kirrawee's village.

Shopping & Amenities

Kirrawee's village shopping strip on Oak Road, next to the railway station, holds food outlets, a newsagent, dentist, real estate agents, a bike shop and other small businesses, with murals around the village and station. South Village Kirrawee — the mixed-use town centre on the old brick-pit site at the station end of Oak Road — opened on 14 November 2018 with a Woolworths supermarket, specialty shops, restaurants and entertainment (South Village; Shopping Centre News).

Parks & Outdoors

Local parks include Kirrawee Oval, a floodlit sporting ground used by St Patrick's Sutherland Football Club, the Helena Street off-leash dog park, and Flora Street Reserve, Betham Place Reserve, Pollard Park and Tea Tree Place Reserve, which protect some of the last remnant patches of the critically endangered Sydney Turpentine Ironbark Forest. The long-disused 4.5 ha Kirrawee Brick Pit just north of the village has been the subject of a master plan mixing redevelopment with open space. The Royal National Park — Australia's oldest national park — begins in the adjoining suburbs of Loftus and Grays Point, about five minutes' drive from the village, with the Sydney Tramway Museum in adjacent Loftus nearby.

Property Market

The median house price in Kirrawee was around ~$1.6–1.7M (mid-2026): realestate.com.au suburb data reported a 12-month median of $1,600,000 for houses (snippet on a 2026 REA listing page), while OnTheHouse (Cotality data, as at 31 July 2026) put the median house value at $1,694,495. See our full Sydney property price map for how the suburb compares across the city. At the 2021 census Kirrawee had 11,007 residents, up 18.6% on 2016, and housing is a mix of family homes on the southern side of the rail line and apartments from South Village-type renewal; OnTheHouse counts 6,193 properties across 3.5 km² with 15 parks covering about 5.2% of the suburb. Note the guide's expected ~$1.9–2.2M range is above what trackers actually show for mid-2026: medians cluster around $1.6–1.7M for houses (the suburb's large North Kirrawee industrial zone and former brick-pit land keep it below premium waterfront Shire suburbs), while unit medians sit between roughly $833K and $953K depending on the tracker and sales window.

New Developments

South Village Kirrawee — the PAYCE and Mirvac mixed-use town centre built beside Oak Road on the former brick-pit site, which opened on 14 November 2018 combining residential apartments with a Woolworths-anchored retail precinct. It was the outcome of more than a decade of proposals and court hearings over the 4.5 ha brick-pit site — including a $220M nine-storey plan for nearly 500 units and 13,500 m² of retail lodged with the NSW Planning Department in July 2010 over council opposition — after the Sutherland Shire local environment plan rezoned the site for commercial, residential and 20% open space. Sutherland Shire Council also flagged a tech-focused library and community hub at South Village in April 2023.

Jobs & Local Economy

Local employment centres on the South Village and Oak Road retail precinct (supermarket, specialty retail, hospitality) and the North Kirrawee commercial and industrial zone, with small-to-medium factories, car dealerships and petrol stations north of the rail line. At the 2016 census 19.8% of employed Kirrawee residents travelled to work by public transport and 64.1% by car, reflecting the suburb's role as a commuter base for jobs in the Sydney CBD and the nearby civic, retail and health hubs of Sutherland, Miranda and Caringbah.

Nearby Suburbs

Sutherland, Gymea, Loftus, Grays Point, Jannali, Woronora

Sources & method

Researched 4 September 2026 from named public sources — census and government records, transport authorities, council and planning documents — plus published sales data. Where sources disagree on a figure, the guide says so rather than picking one.

Sources cited in this guide:

• Wikipedia — Kirrawee
• Transport for NSW
• NSW Government

Corrections are welcome — if something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it.

Back to all Sydney suburb guides.