Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to present a petition that has been found to be in order by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Petitions and which has been signed by 272 Australians in my electorate.

The petition read as follows—

To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives

This petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House the failure of the Government to commit to a new entrance to the Enoggera Army Base on Samford Road and the uncertainty and delay that this creates in reducing the impact of traffic on local roads.

We therefore ask the House to urge the Minister for Defence to instruct his Department to contribute to the construction of a new entrance to the Enoggera Army Base on Samford Road in consideration of the residents and businesses in that area.

from 272 citizens

Petition received.

This petition is signed by the local residents of Ashgrove and Enoggera and draws to the attention of the House the failure of the government to commit to a new entrance to the Enoggera Barracks on Samford Road and the uncertainty and delay that this creates in reducing the impact of traffic on local roads. It goes on to ask the House to urge the Minister for Defence to instruct his department to contribute to the construction of a new entrance to the Enoggera Army base on Samford Road in consideration of the residences and businesses in that area.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the biggest local issue I have in my electorate is traffic congestion on local roads. It is not confined to one suburb or a block of streets; it is becoming a significant source of frustration to many of the local suburban residents. Large amounts of traffic, including heavy vehicles such as semitrailers, are rat-running using our local streets as opposed to using the main arterial routes. This is tending to mainly affect the inner suburbs, where traffic to and from the city during peak times diverts through local roads and is a major safety issue, as well as incredibly inconvenient.

However, this afternoon I am going to concentrate on a local road issue that will not go away. I am talking about the traffic congestion around Ashgrove and Enoggera and the failure of the government to commit to opening a new entrance to the Enoggera Army base on Samford Road to alleviate traffic. This saga—and it is a saga—has been going on since 2010, and it is just not good enough. I have raised this matter before in the House and recently I welcomed the shadow minister for defence science, technology and personnel, Stuart Robert MP, to Enoggera to meet with local residents about their concerns.

Meetings first commenced in June 2010 between the Department of Defence and the Queensland government's Department of Transport and Main Roads to include the Samford Road entrance to the Enoggera Army base as part of the Queensland government's Samford Road corridor plan. An article in the North-West News of 7 July 2011 notes that Defence announced it is working with the transport and main roads department for a new entrance as part of the state's Samford Road corridor. The Department of Defence is quoted as saying:

… plans would be finalised as part of the Samford Rd corridor plan …

Then, in November 2011, the answer to a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works question on notice on the LAND 17 phase 1A infrastructure project included the following response:

The Department of Defence is committed to putting an entrance on to Samford Rd, but we cannot proceed with any works on Samford Road until the final road design for the Samford Rd and Wardell St intersection upgrade has been finalised.'

Meetings continued between the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads and the Department of Defence, and the dialogue went through all of 2011 and 2012. They met to progress these projects. Campbell Newman announced the revised plans on 22 June 2011 for the Samford Road-Wardell Street intersection, which would also include a new entrance to the Enoggera Barracks at a cost of $65 million. Senator Feeney, the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, also indicated in correspondence dated 26 June that Defence would possibly contribute $5.4 million for the new entrance to the barracks off Samford Road.

After all the negotiations and all the work that has been completed over this issue over a period of two years, the government then indicated in estimates in February that they would not commit to a new entrance after all but instead would commission yet another study. Works on the Samford-Wardell upgrade have now been started by the Newman government, and this is quite farcical: there will be a turning lane into a fence, as there will be no entrance because Defence will not commit to a new entrance off Samford Road. This is just incredible.

In direct contrast to this government, we are committed to working through the issues surrounding traffic management around the Enoggera Army base and surrounds, and should the coalition win the election later this year we will make absolutely sure that we will resolve this issue and make it a top priority.

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