Teresa Gambaro (Petrie, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I speak about a constant challenge for the people of the Petrie electorate, and that is the provision of adequate transport infrastructure. The Petrie electorate is a long and narrow electorate which covers the northern suburbs of Brisbane and stretches all the way from Stafford to Mango Hill and the Redcliffe Peninsula.

Cutting through the electorate is a very busy highway—the Bruce Highway—which is the gateway to the popular Sunshine Coast and all of the farmlands in the northern regions of the state. Those who regularly drive on this road in the north of Brisbane are only too familiar with the growing congestion that has occurred over a period of time. I see it myself every moment of the day. While I am forever grateful for the extension of the Bruce Highway and the money that this government has put into it, the drive from my home in Carseldine to other areas of the electorate can be very lengthy. My office is only around the corner from where I live and the drive can be quite a long journey.

This traffic is ever increasing, and Gympie Road has become one of the busiest roads in Queensland. I witness the large number of cars that pass through every day of the week. It is an enormous amount of traffic. For far too long the north has been deprived of major freeways. The South East Freeway, for example, has benefited many residents, but residents of the north have constantly suffered without a major freeway leading to the northern extremities. Peak-hour traffic is starting earlier and earlier each day and can run through till 10 am on a typical day. In the afternoon, as early as 3 pm, we have gridlock, continuing right until the early evening.

This is the case any day of the year, and those extra few minutes spent in traffic are cutting into people’s productivity as well as their time with their families. The north of my electorate has recently experienced great residential growth with vast tracts of land being converted to housing estates. All of that has added to continued pressure on our roads. While the close proximity of the highway gives residents a direct route to the city, where they wish to travel for work, they end up caught in congested traffic on state roads.

Why is this happening? A lot of the blame must go to the Beattie government. They have failed to properly plan and provide the infrastructure for a growing Queensland. In the 10 years of the Howard government and during my time in the parliament, Queensland and Brisbane have experienced an absolutely phenomenal rate of growth. The number of people leaving the southern states to make their home in the Sunshine State has been demonstrated by recent redistribution of the electoral boundaries and the creation of an additional electorate in Queensland.

Queensland’s population has grown by 21.4 per cent in this decade and we now have an estimated population of just under four million. Brisbane has grown at a similar rate, with the population growing from 1.48 million to an estimated 1.81 million. That is a great endorsement for all the things that we hold dear in Queensland—our standard of living, our sunshine and our beaches—but it does require the state government to look forward. All of these people bring new demands. They have cars, they bring their families and they need to travel for work and leisure, and the existing transport infrastructure has not been developed to cater sufficiently for this growth. One of the worst examples is the Gateway Motorway, a major Brisbane arterial, which already faces the need for an upgrade because it was not adequately planned for by the state government in the first place.

The Howard government’s contribution to transport funding for the Petrie electorate during the 10 years I have had the honour of representing it in the parliament has been absolutely considerable. From 1996 to 2006 a total of $217 million has been provided to the electorate through four major programs: the black spot program, Roads to Recovery, supplementary Roads to Recovery and the AusLink national network. One of my proudest achievements is to have successfully lobbied for the AusLink national network funding that allowed the Bruce Highway to be expanded to six lanes as it passes through the electorate of Petrie. This project will eventually provide a six-lane highway to Caboolture. A total of $127 million has been provided to Petrie through this program.

One of the best funding programs that the federal government has provided is Roads to Recovery. My local councils have been very proud to receive some $78 million. They have passed on to me their appreciation for this particular program and for their involvement in the direct funding of this major program. What they really value the most about this program is that it delivers funds directly to local government to spend on local roads, free from the interference of the state government funding system and the bureaucracy. The councils have proven that they know where best to spend the funds, unlike the Queensland Beattie government. The same goes for the black spot program, which provides funding directly to council—in the case of Petrie, some $2 million—to make our roads safer. A number of local roads have seen major improvements with things like traffic lights and islands installed at blind spots, so I am very grateful for that program.

But the answer to providing relief for the road users of Petrie is not solely reliant on more road infrastructure. It is time the Queensland government reconsidered the prospect of extending the rail network to the Redcliffe Peninsula. There is not a day or a week where I do not get representation from my constituents on this. It is time that they extended the rail network to the Redcliffe Peninsula. The representations call for the extension of the line. The state government purchased land years ago—it was planned—but, at the last minute, the state government decided not to fund the railway to Redcliffe. I have to question what the state member for Redcliffe, Lillian van Litsenburg, is doing to act on their calls. There does not seem to be much answer to that. I constantly make representations to the state member but to no avail. I call on the state member for Redcliffe to start pushing for the rail needs of her constituents with her Queensland government colleagues.

The north of the electorate of Petrie is growing rapidly. We have a number of estates, including the North Lakes estate, which will have some 25,000 people living there within the next several years. I call on the state member for Redcliffe to continue to push for the rail needs of her constituents and to work on her Queensland government colleagues to ensure that it becomes a reality. As I said, the north of the electorate of Petrie is growing rapidly. There are a number of working families there and they deserve transport infrastructure that allows them to spend time with their loved ones, not to be stuck in gridlock. Traffic jams cause accidents, stress, loss of productivity and, more importantly, lost time together. The Beattie government should do now what it spent most of its term avoiding—make a decision; use some of that growing GST revenue on roads and railways, which the people of the city of Brisbane deserve.