Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail is a 161-kilometre recreational trail from Ipswich to Yarraman utilising the old Brisbane Valley rail lines. The longest rail trail in the country, it provides walkers, cyclists and horse riders an opportunity to experience the history and landscape of the beautiful Somerset region. It follows the old rail line near the Brisbane River south and north of the Wivenhoe Dam, and travels through farming landscapes, native and plantation forests and rural, residential and country towns.

Not all the sections of the trail are yet open. It was an initiative of the former Queensland Labor government with the support of the local councils and the local community. The Queensland LNP government has now mothballed and abandoned the historic rail trail which brings much-needed tourism and economic benefits to the Somerset region.

The Queensland LNP government recently announced that it would cut all funding to Somerset's premier tourist attraction. The townships of Linville, Moore, Toogoolawah, Esk, Coominya, Lowood and Fernvale rely on the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail. Recreational users visit these struggling towns and villages. In July this year the Fernvale-to-Lowood fun run along the trail attracted thousands of people.

The cuts threaten not just tourism for the area but heritage for the region. The rail trail has preserved the heritage rail tunnels and bridges. The rail trail has preserved a green corridor for the functionally extinct koalas in the region. This is cruel and heartless by the Queensland LNP government. It is short-sighted and stupid.

The state member for Ipswich West, Sean Choat, an LNP member, referred to the trail as something that is 'nice to have' and expressed disappointment. In fact, he was politically disingenuous and politically deceptive in a recent meeting of the Somerset Regional Tourism Association, which I attended on 4 September this year, when he failed to express to the tourist operators that the state LNP government in Queensland had already mothballed and abandoned the project at the time of the meeting. He claimed that, with the debt situation, he could not afford it, but we have now seen exposed the folly and foibles—in fact, the faulty nature—of the Costello audit by Professor Walker and his economist wife, Dr Betty Con Walker. The reality is that the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail is crucial to the economic development of my electorate, and it is short-sighted and stupid, as I said, for the LNP state government to do it. I call upon the state LNP members in the region—Deb Frecklington, the member for Nanango, and Sean Choat, the member for Ipswich West—to do their jobs and stand up for the region and stand up to Campbell Newman and not on his behalf.

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