Jim Lloyd (Robertson, Liberal Party, Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my honourable colleague for that question. It is obviously of concern to all of us to ensure that the state governments actually have the information, the planning and the will to construct these major road projects. It is one of the difficulties with our federation insofar as the Commonwealth actually does not own any roads. Even when we construct them 100 per cent, they go back to the states as an asset for the states. We do not build the roads. We do not call the tenders. We do not manage the projects. So we are very much in the hands of the state governments in relation to timing. With the Ipswich-Logan interchange, which I mentioned, funding was available from around 2004 and yet construction has only just begun on that project.

Another good example in Queensland—and I know the honourable member is from Queensland and would be particularly interested in Queensland—is that we provided an additional $220 million in the 2006-07 budget which had to be paid to Queensland in advance by 30 June 2006 for projects along the Bruce Highway between Townsville and Cairns. It took some six months before the Queensland government responded to our requests for priorities of projects and then it was the Queensland minister who was claiming that we were somehow holding up the progression of these particular projects. We need to have constructive goodwill from the states and territories and the Australian government because we cannot build these roads alone. And the community do not want the delays; they actually want us to get on with building roads. I again make the point that we are concerned that in some cases in the states and territories there seems to be a lack of willingness to get on with those projects.

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