Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak once again about the Goodna bypass and the Ipswich Motorway. These projects are essential to the development of the Ipswich region and to the growth corridor moving west from Brisbane. The Goodna bypass is the project put forward by the Commonwealth to resolve the problems and to create sufficient capacity to be able to deal with the immense increase in traffic volumes going into that area. It has been proven by Maunsell engineers, in their first study of the issue, that merely upgrading the existing road cannot provide sufficient capacity to accommodate all the traffic that is heading into that region. It certainly cannot.

The Maunsell study found that the Goodna bypass was essential to provide sufficient capacity. The Commonwealth, to its credit, has been pursuing that with alacrity. I am sad to say that that has not been the case with the state government. They have done everything in their power to be a dog in the manger for the people of Ipswich and the road users. They have sought to disrupt the project. They have sought to put up hastily concocted alternatives that have turned out to be woefully engineered and even more woefully conceived.

I am very pleased to come into the House today to speak about this because of the second Maunsell study. The first study investigated engineering issues to do with the Goodna bypass. The second study will now go on to look at which of the three routes found by the first Maunsell study to be feasible is the one that the Commonwealth should build. It will also proceed to produce all the necessary information that we need to be able to go to tender on that project by the end of the year. I look forward to that.

I can say I look forward to it because I can tell you now I know that the Maunsell report has cleared its first hurdle, which is where the engineers looked at the questions of afflux and undermining to see whether there were any possible engineering impediments to the creation of any one of the three roads. The fact is the project has passed that hurdle with flying colours. It has leaped that hurdle and it has moved forward, as predicted by every engineer who has looked at the project. It is quite a simple project by way of its conception. It is simply a matter of building a road. There are three alternatives, three different routes you could go. As it turns out, we could build all three of them because none of the three has any kind of flaw from an engineering perspective.

That is an important issue because fatal flaws have been a fantasy put forward by the member for Oxley and by the state Minister for Transport and Main Roads in Queensland, Mr Lucas. They have put forward this phantom of fatal flaws in the Goodna bypass to say that it cannot possibly happen, that we should stop it, that we should get in the way of it, that we should not allow it to occur and that we should do what the state government wants. That is a total crock of nonsense. It has been proven that these so-called fatal flaws do not exist. They are the fantasy of the state transport minister, Mr Lucas, and the member for Oxley, Bernie Ripoll.

The first Maunsell report found that all three routes for the Goodna bypass are feasible. I really want to celebrate that because that is an important issue. People in Ipswich can now look at this as a real opportunity for the transport corridor through our region to be able to carry the traffic that is coming. It was just not a possibility under what the state government were putting forward. They have harped on about it. All their apologists in the local area have continued to campaign for us to upgrade the existing road, which would merely inconvenience everyone for something like seven years while they did it, and then at the end of it the time line for its actual service life was something like five years. So seven years of total construction chaos gives you five years of momentary relief.

That is exactly the process we went through back in 1994 when the Labor Party last unveiled an upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway. It failed after six years. It was a total failure. The idea that they push us through a repeat of the process is really an insult to local people. Why is the Goodna bypass better than the upgrade? Apart from the fact that all three options for it now have the green light from the engineers and apart from the fact that there is no such thing as an afflux or undermining problem anywhere on that route, by proceeding in this fashion the Commonwealth will largely avoid all the consequences of disruption during construction. There will still be considerable disruption with the work on the interchange at Logan—and further down the road there will be that kind of disruption—but further disruption will be minimised because we will be using a greenfield site.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’ll save lives.

Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will be saving lives, and that is a significant issue. According to the first Maunsell report, the carrying capacity of this road would meet the coming flow of traffic for 30 years—and that is if we just build a four-lane Goodna bypass. It is a great opportunity when you consider that the alternative, the state favoured upgrade, would last only five years. It would separate heavy trucks from local commuters by giving them a separate road to operate on. It provides network redundancy so that if there is a blockage on one route the other route can continue. There is no such network redundancy now. It would make Goodna a much better place to live because we are not going to have this great big traffic sewer running through the middle of it. It would create a new motorway type highway and also a new arterial road network for Ipswich, that being the existing motorway in a new guise because all the heavy trucks will be moved off it. There are also many other improvements which come with the option for a bypass.

The Goodna bypass will basically do for Ipswich what the M1 did for the Gold Coast. It will mean that the true potential for growth in our region can be realised. There is no other way to realise it. I have continued to fight for this right throughout, but state members and their fellow travellers in our region continue to obfuscate and continue to get in the way of it. They want us to do what the last upgrade involved and to produce the same outcome, which was practically nothing after years of blood, sweat and tears. I am proud to have been involved in the campaign to get the Goodna bypass up and running. I am out to do something good for Ipswich and the motorists who at the moment are absolutely frustrated with the current corridor. This is the only short-term, medium-term and long-term solution to their problems. Minimising the serious prospect of disruption during construction is the short-term issue. In the medium term is an immediate opportunity for relief, which would not come until much later with the upgrade process. Finally, in the long term is a horizon of 30 years versus five years under the other scenario.

I got on this bandwagon because years ago, in 2001, the state main roads department’s own engineer told me what a dog of a project the state government’s proposed upgrade would be. He told me that. He told me about the chaos that would follow and the lives that would be lost during construction and in traffic on that road because of the state’s determination for what they want to do. They are worried that when we build the Goodna bypass they will have to take responsibility for the existing motorway. It is saving lives versus some kind of financial impediment the state sees in this project—as opposed to the utopia of having the Commonwealth pay for everything. What are lives in Ipswich worth? Honestly! I listened to that engineer, and it is a pity that the state main roads department did not listen to him too; otherwise we would have started the Goodna bypass study back in 2001 and not at this late date.

By the end of this year Maunsell should have prepared everything we need to go to tender for the construction of the Goodna bypass, and the Commonwealth and the state government should be ready to recognise that and to proceed as quickly as possible. The state Labor government keep saying that it is wrong for politicians representing the needs of motorists to draw lines on a map to show where a needed road should go—nonsense. What they mean is that, because Labor do not have the guts to stand up for motorists and for Ipswich, no-one else should either. I say to Labor: stop making excuses, stop telling lies and get out of the way because the Goodna bypass is coming through.

Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There being no further speakers, I put the question:

That grievances be noted.

Question agreed to.