Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Groom is excited and he should be. I know the member for Wright is really excited and he should be, and so am I because yesterday we opened—wait for it—the eighth wonder of the modern world: the Toowoomba bypass. How exciting is that! If you haven't seen it, go onto the internet and have a look at it. It is an ingenious architectural masterpiece—unbelievable. His electorate is benefitting, as are all 151 electorates, from our $100 billion pipeline of infrastructure projects. Just yesterday, the $1.6 billion—that's a big amount—Toowoomba bypass was opened. That's how much it cost. It started under our government and it finished under our government. That's delivering.

Ms Catherine King interjecting—

There are many more, Member for Ballarat. Here are just a few statistics on this: 41 kilometres of new road, 24 bridges, almost 60,000 cubic metres of concrete, more than 10,000 tonnes of steel, 4½ million work hours—that's jobs, Australian jobs. It will cut travel time by up to 40 minutes, and that's improving productivity, improving efficiencies. It will eliminate 18 sets of traffic lights and remove thousands of trucks from the Toowoomba CBD each and every day. It truly is, as I said at the start, an engineering masterpiece. It's a masterpiece in design, it's a masterpiece in architecture, and it's been created through Australian hard work, Australian sweat by Australian ingenuity. I was so proud to be there yesterday.

As the member for Groom said, Toowoomba locals can now take back James Street. James Street will return to being a magnificent thoroughfare through this beautiful regional city. Local roads will be less noisy, less congested and, most importantly, safer for both motorists and pedestrians. The Toowoomba bypass is just one example of a major piece of nation-building infrastructure that this government has started—and now finished—providing ongoing certainty and stability for the Australian people.

On Saturday, I was at the Queensland Trucking Association awards night, and Gary Mahon, the CEO of that organisation, said—listen to this; it's really important—'This project will enable heavy vehicles to travel west of Toowoomba to the Port of Brisbane without having to encounter a single set of traffic lights.' You can imagine that, if you're a truckie trying to get from A to B and you've got about 130 or so kilometres from west of Toowoomba to the Port of Brisbane and you don't have to encounter a set of traffic lights—how good is that! Can you imagine the freight efficiencies that's going provide, the safety aspects and the productivity boost this is going to enhance?

I'm proud to announce that more than 98 per cent of business generated by the Toowoomba bypass construction between 2016 and 2018 was secured by Australian companies. That's certainty; that's delivery; that's the Liberal-Nationals. (Time expired)

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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