Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I ask the Acting Prime Minister, the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, to inform the House about where we are up to with the Toowoomba Range crossing. I recall that back in 2007 we had committed, as a coalition, to fund the construction of the Toowoomba Range crossing to the tune of $700 million. To put it into context for those who have probably never had the opportunity to travel on the current Toowoomba Range, as you descend off the top of that range there is a big clear sign, put there by the state government, that, unfortunately, reads 'To date'—and there is a little tablet of numbers that are interchangeable—'lives have been lost on this range'. The last time I had the opportunity to drive down that range, something like 159 lives had been lost on that road. There is an enormous amount of work currently being undertaken on it, through NDRAA funding, as a result of the damage that was done to it by the floods.

The Toowoomba Range bypass that this coalition has committed to, I believe to the extent of $1.285 billion, will have an enormous benefit for my region at the bottom of the range. We get so much traffic coming out of Sydney through that Toowoomba area because it is quicker for a truck to go from Sydney through Toowoomba to Brisbane than it is to go up the coastline. At the moment we have trucks going through Toowoomba, through 27 different sets of traffic lights and some incredible amount of traffic a day—I think 25,000 units a day, and in that is obviously a large number of trucks. Can the minister inform the House what the relationship is with the state government funding arrangements, with the 80-20 split, and also what the benefits to productivity are for the state? This is a project that was never going to be funded by those on that side. It was in the budget papers in 2007 but was taken out.

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