Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about transport in my electorate, an inner city electorate in the southern suburbs of Brisbane. I have a confluence of transport nodes in Moreton. My northern boundary is the Brisbane River, where the Brisbane CityCat travels into the city. Then, if I am going anticlockwise, the next major motorway would be the Ipswich Motorway, which connects the people from the west in Toowoomba all the way down to Melbourne, I suppose, connecting onto Ipswich Road or straight through to Granard, Riawena or Kessels roads. Then, moving around in an anticlockwise way, there is the Oxley Road, where people from south of Moreton—from Forest Lake and Heathwood and those big growth corridors—move north into the city or to one of the big employers on the northern side of the river, the University of Queensland, travelling over the Indooroopilly bridge. Also, there is the Ipswich train line, which pulls people from right out at Ipswich into the city of Brisbane up through Graceville and Chelmer. There is even a spur line that goes across to the port of Brisbane, which does not take passengers anymore but which does take coal through to the port of Brisbane. Moving further around towards the east there is Ipswich Road, the continuation of the Ipswich Motorway, which takes large numbers of cars and trucks into the city. I have also got 19,000 business in Moreton, and many of them are serviced by Ipswich Road.

In terms of planes, trains and automobiles, Archerfield Airport is a general aviation hub and also the start of where Brisbane Airport planes line up on the old tractor beam, I suppose you would call it, from Archerfield to Eagle Farm. The next road around is Beaudesert Road. Then the next major transport link would be the interstate train line, which takes transport from Perth all the way through Melbourne and Sydney to Acacia Ridge. Just a little bit further north of the Acacia Ridge train depot is Tennyson—the start of the goods transport which goes all the way through to Cairns. Further east is the Beenleigh train line, which takes passengers all the way from the Gold Coast right through to the city of Brisbane. Obviously, lots of buses go through this area as well. I will particularly mention the buses that go up Mains Road, which is a major route from the south, in Beaudesert, right through to the city. In fact, Mains Road is the second-busiest busway in Brisbane, even though it is a road and not a busway. The next road around, at my eastern boundary, would be the South East Freeway, which has a busway next to it and a bike path.

All of these transport routes come through Moreton. Moreton is a confluence of transport nodes. It is important that I detail the sort of transport that comes through Moreton because I want to particularly talk about some opportunities to invest in transport infrastructure in Moreton. I was pleased to see in a media release on 28 August that the Labor lord mayoral candidate, Rod Harding, announced his commitment to establishing a $650 million suburban congestion busting fund. One of the first projects he committed to was the Coopers Plains rail crossing. He said:

The first new project will be the construction of a rail overpass to remove the Coopers Plains open level crossing. With Coopers Plains consistently listed among the most dangerous and congested level crossings in Brisbane, this long-awaited rail overpass will vastly improve safety and save motorists up to 20 minutes during peak hour.

Having sat at the Coopers Plains rail crossing, I do attest to long delays. It is good to see that the Labor candidates for the Brisbane City Council—my local councillor Steve Griffiths, Stanley Hsu and Mukhtar Wesseh-Nah-Konteh—have all got behind this great initiative, as has the state member for Sunnybank, Peter Russo. When that announcement was made by Rod Harding, Michael Roth, the public policy officer for the RACQ—also located in Moreton—said in response:

Upgrading the Boundary Road level crossing is on our list of priority transport projects for Brisbane and Wynnum Road is desperately in need of an upgrade to ease the traffic congestion motorists face morning and afternoon.

I say that because this has been an issue for a long time. I will quote a former member for Moreton. Often in this chamber I quote Sir James Killen, who was the member for Moreton from 1955 to 1983, a member for 28 years. I am not going to quote him; I am actually going to quote Gary Hardgrave who made a speech about this overpass in 1996. He said:

Tonight I rise to speak about the Coopers Plains level crossing in my electorate. This is a very dangerous level crossing and an overpass should have been built there some 25 years ago.

By my maths, that would have been 1971, right in the middle of Sir James Killen's time as member for Moreton. He went on:

Lack of an overpass contributes to the problems which cause one of Brisbane's most congested intersections, the intersection of Boundary, Orange Grove and Beenleigh Roads at Coopers Plains. Lack of an overpass has caused small business to decline in the general Coopers Plains area and it has also, unfortunately, caused several fatalities—

That was Gary Hardgrave back in 1996. Unfortunately, he spent 12 years as an MP, but he put no funding into this grade separation. Unfortunately, nothing happened during his 12 years. It is time that we acted on this. I saw that RACQ spokesperson Paul Turner, in June this year, described the crossing as one of two 'major crisis points' in the Brisbane transport network. In fact, in 2012, RACQ included the Coopers Plains rail crossing in their list of 'target 10 Queensland transport projects'. In 2013, the Coopers Plains rail crossing was named by rail industry group TrackSAFE as one of the level crossings that drivers rate as the most dangerous in Queensland.

Just down the road, the second-busiest intersection in Queensland, the Kessels-Mains Road intersection, is something I funded. I secured $300 million to fund it. It came in under budget at $280 million, a grade separation on the south side. In fact, one of the first things I did as the member for Moreton, while the gentleman opposite was wandering around out of office, was to open the Elizabeth Street rail crossing. These were two federally funded grade separation projects on the south side of Brisbane. That is to be contrasted with what the Campbell Newman government did when they were in power for three years. They funded two projects—

Mr Howarth interjecting—

I will take that interjection. They funded two projects on the north side of Brisbane—

Mr Howarth interjecting—

John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Petrie is warned.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

ignoring the south side. Only federal projects funded by Labor on the south side have been opened. Unfortunately, Campbell Newman, when he was in office—even though his transport minister was an MP in my electorate—neglected the south side. As I said, we saw the Elizabeth Street grade separation, which got rid of the delay at Acacia Ridge of 13 minutes, and the Kessels-Mains intersection at $280 million. But when the state LNP government were in office, under Campbell Newman, we had stooges. We had the member for Yeerongpilly—who I think joined the Palmer United Party and then became an independent—the member for Sunnybank and the member for Stretton who were complete stooges when it came to implementing something for the south side. They were silent on this neglect.

When the ALP came to office back in 2007, unfortunately when it came to investing in infrastructure, according to the OECD, we were 20th in terms of spending as a proportion of GDP. When we left office in 2013, we were first when it came to investing in infrastructure. We set up an independent body, Infrastructure Australia, and when they recommended at arms-length 15 projects, how many of those projects did we fund? Fifteen of those projects, including Brisbane's Cross River rail project.

We know that traffic congestion costs us money. At the moment we are estimating it will cost us about $13 billion this year. By 2031 that will be out to $50 billion. What do we do? We need to invest in infrastructure—things like the Cross River Rail project which, as everyone on the south side knows, is a pinch point for all traffic right through from the New South Wales border to the city of Brisbane because of that one crossing, being the Grey Street rail bridge. It is a growth corridor all the way through to the Gold Coast. We have got Liberal National Party representatives. Unfortunately, under Prime Minister Abbott, before he got knifed in the back by Malcolm Turnbull, right through to the Gold Coast they have not funded the Cross River Rail project. When they do—by necessity they will fund the Cross River Rail project—every one of those extra trains that goes on the train line will go through the boom gates at Coopers Plains. So we had the member for Moreton, Gary Hardgrave, saying back in 1996 that we need to fund the upgrade at the Coopers Plains rail crossing. Now we need to do whatever we can to secure funding.

  Unfortunately, the Labor government in Queensland went to an election on keeping a promise, basically. They did not do the backflips like those opposite have done. They said, 'We will not sell these assets.' That therefore excludes them from the asset recycling money. That therefore means that Queensland is not able to access the money that we need to invest in important public infrastructure such as the Coopers Plains rail crossing. And it is not good enough. (Time expired)