George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is very sad that, on a motion regarding black spots and road safety, all we have heard from speakers opposite is politics—politics around who got sent from what committee to where, politics around which electorates might be getting funding and which aren't. What we are not hearing is some empathy for this issue, the serious issue of road safety. This is an issue where people lose their lives. It is an issue where the government, I have to say, is acting and has been acting for some time on a range of measures—the Black Spot program being one of them. We heard this churlish argument against roundabouts, calling a minister 'Minister for Roundabouts' because he's funding them. Roundabouts are a very important part of the mix in sorting out road safety issues. It just shows the kind of politics that are at play here.

In my electorate of Dawson there are quite a number of road safety projects along with the blackspot program, fixing up intersections such as Milton and George Streets. It is going to be a signalised intersection there where there have been quite a few accidents in the past. That is something that practically is happening. There is also another problem intersection in Bowen that is being fixed, and that's on the back of two other intersections in Bowen where there have been accidents and that have been fixed through this program as well.

Bigger funding is going towards major road infrastructure projects which also are going to improve road safety. We have the Mackay ring road. It's going to take the heavy vehicles out of Nebo Road. A few years ago we a driver who had a fit in a sugar truck. He crossed the lane and ran into one of the motels we've got on Nebo Road in Mackay. He hit the gas canisters on the side of the motel, and it blew up with a huge explosion. Luckily, in that event no-one actually lost their life. We on this side have acted after many years, including under the Labor side of government, with the council and the community calling for funding for the Mackay ring road. Not only have we funded stage 1 of that Mackay ring road, which fixes up the heavy vehicle issues in Nebo Road and the Mackay urban area; we have also have funded stage 2, which is all about freight efficiency.

Along with that, an issue I have been pushing for a long time—back before I was a member of parliament, when I was a local government councillor in Mackay and represented the area of Walkerston, which now Michelle Landry represents as a federal member—is the Walkerston bypass. When I got into this job, that was one of the things that I wanted to see funded as well. Along with the member for Capricornia, I pushed long and hard for that. At the moment, we've got the Peak Downs Highway, which runs through the small town of Walkerston. You've got these fuel tankers heading out to the mines. They go past a very tight little village and pass two schools—a state school and the Catholic school—and the main shopping area, where a whole heap of pedestrians are. These trucks roar through there every hour of every day. It's a completely state controlled road, by the way.

I went to the state minister, Mark Bailey, saying to him that, if we could come up with 50 per cent of the funds, would they fund it. 'Yes' was the response. When we came up with the funds, they still wouldn't do it, even though it was a completely state controlled road and it should have been done at state expense. We came up with 80 per cent of the funds, and suddenly they are doing it. So we have the track record. We are doing these sort of projects in regions, not just Mackay. We've also got the Haughton River bridge up in the Burdekin, near Townsville. We've got the Townsville ring road. Stage 4 of that is being built. A lot of it has already being built. We've had road safety projects all over Queensland and all over Australia. They will continue because of the massive investment that this side of politics, managing the budget better, has been able to put into infrastructure—particularly road infrastructure—across this country.

That side would leave it all up to the bureaucrats to determine. If Infrastructure Australia made every single choice that there was to make, regional Australia would get nothing. That's what we'll look forward to under a Labor government: bureaucrats who neglect regional Australia making all of the decisions.

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