Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand to make a case for the Bagdad-Mangalore bypass. This is a road bypass that's been in the planning stages for many years—in fact, decades. It's a 17-kilometre extension of the Midland Highway just north of Pontville, and it would meet up with Dysart. All the land acquisitions are in place. This is a shovel-ready project for 17 kilometres of highway that will be a great boon to the southern regions of Tasmania and particularly my electorate.

Bagdad and Mangalore are little townships along the way. If this bypass were to go through, it would really improve the amenity in those townships for the people living there, but it would also open up hectares and hectares of new home sites and new commercial areas. This is a very fast growing region of my electorate and this would be an absolute boon.

I would like to thank the Deputy Prime Minister and infrastructure minister. He's been quite supportive in my dealings with him to date, and I hope that continues. But, if the government's looking for shovel-ready projects—and we are expecting pretty bad news coming out this week on jobs—to create jobs and create economic opportunity, you can't do worse than backing the Bagdad-Mangalore bypass. It's been listed as a priority project. It's been in the slow lane of planning for the last few years. It's ready to go. The land acquisitions are there. It's absolutely ready to go. Back it!

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