Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On many occasions over the last decade I have said very plainly that there are too many interstate trucks on local roads in the electorate of Moreton, mainly because there has been no local traffic plan—no plan to tell the trucks where to go. We put bigger and bigger trucks on the roads, we do not build roads that are suitable for those vehicles—we just expect them to use and find their way through suburban streets, some of them very small, most of them completely ill equipped for it.

Local people have been backing my efforts over the past decade when it comes to the Brisbane Urban Corridor—that is, Granard Road, Riawena Road, Kessels Road and Mount Gravatt-Capalaba Road. I am pleased to inform the House that, after a decade of urging, the state government have finally listened and they have erected a sign that tells the trucks to use the alternative route, the exact thing I have been calling for for a decade on behalf of local residents. In the meantime, the Australian government has delivered $1.7 million in toll-free access to the alternative route that we have been pointing the trucks to. It is a toll road. The state government use this road to make money. It is the only toll road in the entire state of Queensland. It is the most purpose-built road for heavy vehicles, yet they put a toll on it. The $1.7 million has taken 221,000 trucks over the last two years off this road at night, so residents between 10 pm and 5 am are able to get some sleep, and the state government now have put signs up telling trucks to use this toll road or else they will face fines. They have put load limits on the Kessels Road corridor. After a decade of telling me that it is a federal road and they cannot do anything about it, the state government have finally fessed up that they had the authority to fix it, and fix it they could, and they are finally now doing it. They are monitoring trucks and asking them why they are on that road.

What I am concerned about is that all of this is subterfuge for a complete failure to have a proper local traffic plan. The effect of the state government’s action so far with the toll road still in place is that McCullough Street, Sunnybank and Padstow Road through Eight Mile Plains are now wearing those heavy trucks. Beenleigh Road through Sunnybank Hills, Runcorn and Kuraby are now wearing those heavy trucks. Compton Road through Sunnybank Hills, Calamvale and Stretton are now wearing those heavy trucks because there is no local traffic plan.

All of those other roads are council and state government controlled roads. I call on the Brisbane City Council and the state government to recognise that their authority on those roads is absolute. They must ensure a couple of things: (1) through that road traffic plan tell the trucks to stay out of residential areas in order to get B-doubles off those roads and (2) get rid of the toll on the southern Brisbane bypass, the only tolled road in the entire state of Queensland, a road purpose built, and allow those trucks to use that road instead and direct them there. The big concern for local residents is that federal Labor still want to put more trucks through my area. They still want to see the widening of the Ipswich Motorway delivering more trucks to the Kessels Road corridor. That is their platform, and they stand condemned. (Time expired)