Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I advise the member for Dawson to support me because I know he and the people he represents in this place live well west of Ipswich and well north of Noosa. My electorate of Maranoa, under the coalition’s plan, under AusLink II, would have received some $40 million for the Gore Highway, which is an important link between Goondiwindi and Toowoomba. It is the road that links Toowoomba through to Brisbane, goes out through Goondiwindi and then through the Murray-Darling Basin, the great food bowl of our nation. We had $40 million committed, and that would have started to be rolled out in the 2009-10 year to upgrade that highway. AusLink would have provided some $20 million for the Cunningham Highway. So often the Cunninghams Gap road that links Brisbane through to Warwick and the New England Highway down to Sydney experiences rock falls, and the traffic can be delayed for days because of that. That $20 million would have addressed that problem. I re-emphasise the fact that it is a vital Queensland inland link road between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

AusLink would have provided some $128 million for the important Warrego Highway. The Warrego Highway might start at Ipswich but it goes a long way west of Ipswich. It goes all the way out almost to Charleville. We would have provided some $128 million for the highway. It is an important corridor because it links Brisbane not only to Mount Isa but also to Darwin. It is also a very strategic defence link for this nation, and it should not be ignored. We said we would put $128 million into that road. Before the election the federal government committed some $55 billion for that road. It is not enough, and yet I do welcome that $55 million albeit that it is a long way short of what is required for that very important road link between Brisbane and Darwin, feeding out into the whole Surat coal seam and coal basin which is providing so much wealth for our nation, so much tax revenue for the Commonwealth. Of course, all Australians benefit from the development of the resources sector.

Quite apart from the need to upgrade the road between Roma and Mitchell, type 2 road trains—I am sure you would be interested in this, Mr Deputy Speaker Schultz—bring cattle from as far away as Kununurra in Western Australia. They come through the Northern Territory, they come through north-west Queensland, all the way down to Roma, the largest store cattle selling centre in the southern hemisphere. Why do they travel more than seven days to bring cattle to a market in type 2 road trains? Because they can get a better margin bringing them to that market. This Warrego Highway between Roma and Mitchell needs, we are told, $50 million to $60 million, maybe more. We, as a coalition, had committed some $128 million to upgrade the length of the highway from west of Toowoomba right through to Mitchell.

Currently the type 2 road trains could have been travelling for more than a week with not just cattle but also general goods, freight and perishables. They have to decouple their loads at Mitchell and leave a trailer behind then the trailers are taken separately by prime mover into the Roma saleyards. They then have to come back and collect the other trailer where they decoupled it. It is in the middle of almost nowhere and there is no security there. It is a pad where the trucks decouple. In fact for the beef industry it adds some $12 per beast just to bring cattle the last 90 kilometres on those trailers. Yet they could have come from Western Australia all the way to the market in Roma. The beef industry in Queensland is our second largest export by value, exported out of the state. It deserves to have the road upgraded between Mitchell and Roma so that we are not adding costs but are reducing costs for the very important beef industry. I say once again to the minister: let us get on with the job and make sure that we do have the money to upgrade the road from Mitchell to Roma.

Of course, then we can deal with safety issues on the road east of Roma right through to Toowoomba including the second range crossing. The second range crossing at Toowoomba is a very important link that the coalition had committed some $700 million towards. It is important because it is, once again, the link of Goondiwindi to Toowoomba and of Darwin through Mount Isa, Roma, Toowoomba and the Port of Brisbane. Right now, because of the failure of the state government to invest in rail infrastructure and rail rolling stock, nearly all the grain that has been harvested there over the last two years has been carried on road transport through Toowoomba to the Port of Brisbane.

Two important coalmines just near Dalby, one at Acland and one at Macalister, are now seeing some of their capacity not moving exclusively on rail but on road. It is an absolute scandal and once again the failure of Labor government planning; in this case the state government of Queensland. It is failure to plan to meet the resource needs and the road infrastructure needs to service these very important resource centres in my electorate. The trucks that go through Toowoomba, had there been a return of the coalition government, could certainly have been travelling on the new alternate route around Toowoomba, which would have removed all the heavy traffic—the grain trucks, the cattle trucks and the coal trucks that now go through the beautiful city of Toowoomba. Once again there has been no commitment from the Labor Party. They are not interested in the resource sector and have put no money in this forward nation-building program to invest in the second range crossing.

A further commitment the coalition had to regional Australia was that we announced $300 million in a development road funding program, which would have recognised the importance of those resources in the rural and remote parts of Australia. I refer to my own electorate in the Diamantina and Barcoo shires. Those long beef roads not only are beef roads today but are going out to the Cooper Basin into the oil and gas fields there. When you see some of the infrastructure being taken in there, oil rigs and pipes, and the development of this very important resource sector quite apart from the beef industry, we recognise the importance of these roads. We recognise the importance of rural and remote building infrastructure and of improving the road infrastructure in remote parts of Australia. We in fact announced some $20 million for the Birdsville development road and the Diamantina development road. That would have been on the back of other funding that we had put in place whilst we were in government. So I say, once again, it is another failure of this government. They are high on rhetoric, short on delivery and fail to recognise the need to build infrastructure in rural and remote parts of Australia where the great wealth of our nation is contained.

Mr Deputy Speaker Schultz, you would be aware that that part of Australia has seen some massive floods that are now flowing down into Lake Eyre and providing a great tourism opportunity. People who are not travelling overseas in these tougher economic times can travel into that part of Queensland and see a magnificent sight. They will see the rebirth of this ancient land in some of the most extraordinary parts of Australia. The raw beauty is something to see, and of course the bird life is quite fantastic.

Once again it is about road infrastructure. The roads had been improved whilst the coalition was in government, with the help of the great work of the councils of the Barcoo, Quilpie, Bulloo and Diamantina shires. They have done a magnificent job of trying to do the best they can with their limited resources. I encourage anyone listening to this broadcast that, if they want to see the outback, they will never see it in better shape. Of course the wonderful bird life—the pelicans and the spoonbills—is quite extraordinary. I recommend that you make the pilgrimage out there and see it this winter. It is a sight that you do not see very often. With some of the work that the coalition had been able to do I just wish that this government would recognise that there should be more money going into those development road programs under a category that would recognise the great importance of our remote and rural resource sectors in Australia.

The other point I want to touch on are roadside rest areas for trucks. Trucking operators are paying an increase in fuel excise, which is designed to go to those rest areas across Australia. I recently spoke at the Western Queensland Local Government Association in Longreach where I said that on my drive from my hometown of Roma up through to Longreach I passed probably five or six of these. I am sure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have seen them in your electorate. There are rest areas beside the roads, there are toilets and water facilities and an area where the truck can get off the main highway. I put the point to the local government people, and they accepted the proposition, that I would like the mains roads department, who have the responsibility for the management of road infrastructure in Queensland, to talk with the local councils and get some consultative process going of where they think these rest areas would be best placed.

On my way to Longreach for this Western Queensland local government conference I noticed that these rest areas are so often beside a highway but between towns. There might be 100 kilometres between towns and there are rest areas halfway between those two towns. I say to the main roads department, through the minister, that, if they were to consult with the local councils, the councils would see that those rest areas should be on the edge of town so that the truckies could at least go into town, have a hot shower, have a good meal and probably get into a cabin or a motel for the night and have a good sleep. I can assure you that a night in the back of a truck or even in the cabin of a truck gets very cold, you are not going to get a feed and you will not get a hot shower—but you will in those local towns. Importantly, you will bring some commerce to those local communities. I think it is a better way to deal with this rather than the approach that has been taken. It may be different on the Pacific Highway, the Hume Highway and other major highways but, on those outback roads and the main highways that link us through to Darwin, think about those small communities and the commerce that could flow by putting rest areas on the edge of town rather than halfway between the towns. I know my time has expired but once again I say to the minister—(Time expired)

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