Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon in the grievance debate to talk about a topic which I know is at the very forefront of the minds of many members of the House. I know that this issue is impacting on many of my rural and remote communities in Maranoa. Many people know that I represent a landmass in Queensland that is just under 50 per cent of the landmass of Queensland. There is a huge network of roads across my electorate, from the remote parts to what we call the inner suburban areas in the Darling Downs—not suburban in the context of the ACT, Sydney or Brisbane but certainly suburban by any criteria you can measure it against, such as in places like Birdsville, Bedourie and Windorah in the outback of my electorate.

Roads in any community are a vital link. They are a vital link for access to education, commerce, health, social interaction and tourism for those communities. They are the very conduit that brings economic activity to any community. Many of the roads in the outback of my electorate remain unsealed. They are generally main road responsibilities of the state of Queensland. We know that the state Labor government have very little regard for the people who live anywhere west of the Great Dividing Range. They are paying little attention. Although I must admit they have put some money into some of these roads, it is not enough to make the big difference we require in this part of my electorate. The local councils themselves are putting all of the money they receive from this government under the Roads to Recovery program into those roads to try to extend the bitumen on what has been dirt roads since the original settlement took place out in the outback of my electorate.

One of the initiatives of a previous coalition government was the establishment of beef roads in outback and north-west Queensland. Those roads have made a tremendous difference to the beef industry but, unfortunately, those roads were only partly completed because the coalition lost government, which ended that program back in 1974. So in many parts of the outback in my electorate there has not been any great program to extend sealed road access to these towns since 1974.

We have tourism playing an increasingly important role in the economies of these communities as people seek to discover the wonders of outback Australia and all that it has to offer. The great early poets of Australia, such as Lawson or Paterson, described it more adequately than I can. All of that spirit and beauty of the outback is captured in the outback of my electorate. But the people who visit it and see it find themselves on many dirt roads. Unfortunately, the people who travel out there have not had the experience of driving on dirt roads and on some occasions they find themselves in difficulty on these roads. In fact, nearly every week there will be a rollover on the road going west of Windorah to Birdsville because of the state of the roads, notwithstanding that the local councils out there are putting all the resources that they can muster, out of our Roads to Recovery money and their own rates revenue, into those roads.

The other aspect of these roads out in the outback of my electorate is the fact that the beef industry rely on being able to get their products into these remote communities in the Channel Country and get them back out. In fact, in many ways there is an environmental aspect to having good roads, because when droughts occur in that part of my electorate the important thing is to be able to get the cattle out of the Channel Country, out of the affected areas, to relieve the stock pressure on that land. If you do not have a good road, you cannot get the cattle out.

You only have to read any early history of the outback and of Sir Sidney Kidman’s pursuits as a pastoralist. He went out of the outback and he bought many large properties in the Channel Country but, unfortunately, when drought set in in those days they were unable to get the cattle out. There was no grass and there was no water. The waterholes were drying up and they did not have roads. I am sure the member for Mitchell can recall that program for the beef roads, which ended in 1974—

Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I can.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

because I am sure he was in the parliament at that time; he may correct me. It started the process of putting the ‘blacktop’, we call it, out into that part of my electorate so that people could get their cattle in and get them out when the seasons turned against them. So there is a very important environmental aspect to having good roads and being able to bring your cattle in and take them out rather than leave them there to die because you are unable to move them in their weakened state. Out there, you do not know when the season may turn in your favour.

There is another aspect to the outback of my electorate, and that is the oil and gas industry. We all know the importance of oil to our nation and to the world. Out in the outback of my electorate, in the Cooper Basin and the Jackson oilfields, the oil company Santos will be drilling some 1,000 holes over the next two years looking for oil. They have taken huge machinery out there to drill these holes for oil, which is going to benefit our nation and the economy as a whole. They take these huge machines over what could be described as little more than a road you might expect to see in a Third World country, a dirt road with gibbers and stones on it and huge bulldust patches on it. I believe we can do better as a country and a government, because that oil is vital to us. It creates jobs and it creates wealth when they are out there in the remote part of my electorate, west of Thargomindah and Eromanga, drilling for oil.

Also, it is the home of the great gas reserves of this nation. The Moomba gas fields and the Jackson and Ballera gas fields feed gas into Brisbane, Townsville, Mount Isa, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. These companies have got to not only explore for more but maintain the installations out there. So any money that we were to put into upgrading these roads would benefit not just the people who live there, the beef industry out there and the tourists who visit the outback but also the oil and gas industry, which is a vital industry, so that we can continue to find more of the energy reserves that we need in Australia and find gas that we can export to overseas markets and create export wealth.

So I say as I rise in this House today that, as a government—and I am proud to be part of a government that has addressed the economic and the budget situation that we inherited; we have one of the strongest economies in the world—it is time that we now focused on more infrastructure spending, be it road or rail, to ensure that the legacy that we leave to future generations is going to bring a benefit to the communities who live in these parts of the world, in these wealth-creating areas of our nation.

I refer today to the Diamantina Development Road between Windorah and Bedourie and the Birdsville road from Windorah to Birdsville. I also refer to the road from Thargomindah right out to Innamincka, feeding into the Moomba oil and gas fields. They are dirt roads. I would like to see more money made available through our strategic Roads to Recovery program. I would like to create another category of strategic rural development roads, because we are talking about the development of the outback. We are talking about development that is essential in the long term to assist in growing our nation.

In the remaining time, which has nearly expired, I commend the programs that we have in place now, spending some $15 billion through the AusLink program. I have spoken to the new incoming Minister for Transport and Regional Services and Deputy Prime Minister about this issue. There are other roads of strategic importance in my electorate, such as the Mitchell to Roma road, which if it were widened would allow type 2 road trains to travel on it, bringing cattle into the markets in Roma. I will be pushing hard over the coming months to get more money for roads for my electorate. (Time expired)

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the honourable member for Gorton, I might just say to the honourable member for Maranoa that I had the privilege of visiting your electorate today on the Next G wireless network that is throughout your electorate. I was able to visit a cattle property and see the dam, turn on pumps and so on, through the new Telstra system. It was great.