Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the vital role the Bruce Highway plays in connecting communities all the way from Brisbane to Cairns;

(2) acknowledges that the Australian Government is investing $6.7 billion into upgrading the Bruce Highway;

(3) notes that:

(a) the Australian Government has approved $6.4 million to fund a planning study into upgrading the Bruce Highway between Pine Rivers and Caloundra Road; and

(b) the Queensland Government is not planning to finalise the planning study until the middle of 2018;

(4) calls on the Queensland Government to expedite its work on the planning study so that much needed upgrade works to the Bruce Highway can start as soon as possible; and

(5) congratulates the Australian Government for approving the supplementary study into upgrading the Bruce Highway between the Sunshine Motorway and the Maroochydore Interchange.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be happy to know my mum gave me a call on Saturday afternoon. It was not to have a chat to her son. Along with probably hundreds of others, she was stuck on the Bruce Highway—southbound, Sunshine Coast to Brisbane. After a quick Google search, I was able to assure my mum it was due to yet another accident. This time it was not a fatal one, thank God. Almost on a daily basis, there is an accident on the Bruce Highway. The local Sunshine Coast Daily ran a headline story about a month ago entitled 'Breaking news: no accident on the Bruce today'.

There is no piece of infrastructure more critical to the life and productivity of the Sunshine Coast region than the Bruce Highway. What our region needs is a modern, integrated transport solution—road, rail and air—and among that mix there is nothing more important than the Bruce Highway. It is a piece of infrastructure to which the coalition has committed a considerable amount of money. Only recently, a tender was announced for a $929 million upgrade with an additional lane in each direction between the Caloundra Road turn-off and the Sunshine Motorway. In addition, the minister recently announced the bringing forward of a $187 million upgrade of the Maroochydore interchange. Put together, that is over $1 billion of works planned for the Sunshine Coast stretch of the Bruce Highway. To make the case for further lanes of the highway between Caboolture and Caloundra, a joint Commonwealth-state study is getting underway, and I call on the Queensland government to progress that study as a matter of urgency.

I feel that for too long people have looked at the Bruce Highway upgrades only in the context of solving problems—safety, congestion and flooding. All of these are absolutely key factors to address, but I believe we also need to talk about the upside, the aspirational side—that upgrading vital infrastructure like the Bruce Highway is just as much about unleashing the economic capacity of the region. It is why I am so happy, too, that the minister recently announced, to supplement the study for extra lanes between Caboolture and Caloundra, another study that will look north of the Sunshine Motorway to the Nambour Connection Road and Maroochydore Road turn-offs for additional lanes. This means more economic growth for our region. If you take tourism as an example, outside Brisbane the Sunshine Coast continues to be the most visited holiday destination in Queensland by other Queenslanders. Can you imagine, therefore, the impact that additional lanes on the Bruce Highway, already an overly utilised asset, would have on just that one sector alone, let alone the other sectors covered within our diversified region?

These commitments have been long fought for and, as the new member for Fairfax, I am very grateful for them. But, quite frankly, it is not enough. That is why my colleagues within the Sunshine Coast region, in Fisher and Wide Bay, together with me and also our colleagues further north and further south, will continue to campaign for further upgrades to the Bruce Highway, and we will be doing so as a unity ticket.

In that spirit of unity, I am delighted to see that the shadow minister has turned up today to speak to the motion. Indeed, there is nothing more heartening than a unity ticket on the Bruce Highway. I am sure that is the spirit of cooperation that the shadow minister will bring to this discussion. I have to say I was somewhat bemused recently with the shadow minister visiting the Sunshine Coast region and taking credit for the upgrades within the region, when he was referring to a time when the Labor Party actually committed $4.1 billion for upgrades to the Bruce Highway, compared to $6.7 billion by the coalition. But that is okay. If we can have a united purpose here, I will be delighted. First and foremost, I would reach out to any member of the opposition to make a phone call to the Premier of Queensland and her colleagues and call for them to hurry up. Let's get on with these studies for more lanes for the Bruce Highway.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

An honourable member: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed always gratifying when a political opponent is happy to acknowledge your work, and that happened on 5 March 2011, when the former Liberal member for Herbert, Ewen Jones, told the Townsville Bulletin: 'I'll give Labor a pat on the back and say that they have spent more in their four to five years on the Bruce Highway than we did before.' And, of course, that is the case. The Howard government, in office for almost 12 long years of infrastructure neglect, invested $1.3 billion on the Bruce Highway. We were in office for six years and we invested $5.7 billion so four times the amount in half the time. It is not hard to work out why Ewen Jones and other people who have actually examined the Bruce Highway acknowledge the fact that, before the election of the Labor government, there simply was not delivery.

I note that this motion asks us to accept that the government is investing $6.7 billion on upgrading the Bruce Highway. The budget figures show that more than $3 billion of that is not being spent this decade. So why say $6.7 billion? Why not say $50 billion, $100 billion, in 2030? You know, it is just quite farcical. Indeed in this year's budget, the government cut the Bruce Highway spending by $118 million for this financial year over what it said in last year's budget papers it would spend. If you look at the coalition government's last year's papers and then you look at the budget papers for this year, there is $118 million less. Of course that is not surprising given that infrastructure investment tumbled by 20 per cent under this government in its first two years. But of course that has not stopped the government pretending somehow that they have been responsible for a lot of the work that is being done including of course the Cooroy to Curra upgrade that was in the electorate of the minister for transport and Deputy Prime Minister at the time. It took us to fix it up.

The Minister for Infrastructure and Transport issued a media release in April this year where he listed 24 projects that he claimed to have been delivered or commenced by the coalition government. Unfortunately for him, 23 of them were begun under the former Labor government—23 or 24, I will give some credit. The Arnot Creek Bridge near Ingham announced in February—$10 million—was a part of the pot of funds that we put into the budget that was not allocated. It had not specifically had its funding cut.

The member for Fairfax is new and has got the new wheels on, on the new roads that Labor built. But I say to him what he should do is examine the facts on this matter and should truly advocate for additional funding because that has not happened under this government. Under this government, what we have had is essentially a magical infrastructure announcement tour in places like Rockhampton, the member for Capricornia's electorate. For projects that were well underway, the member for Capricornia has pretended that somehow there is something new to them.

This is a vital road not only for the interests of productivity for the nation but also for the interests of road safety. I have driven on parts of the Bruce Highway that have been quite clearly unsafe and that is why, for a number of the projects that are being done, road safety is absolutely critical.

I wish the member for Fairfax and other members well in getting additional money. But getting money off into the never never is not a win. The fact is, of the $5.7 billion we had in six years, $4.1 billion was additional investment that we promised moving forward under nation building 2 and the total there for this decade is the commitment that we had. I am very proud of our record on both the Bruce Highway and the Pacific Highway and it is a pity that it has gone back to go-slow since the change of office in 2013.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to reply to the funding that Labor supposedly put into the Bruce Highway outside of Rockhampton because they did stage 1; we did stage 2. And as I say, it is taxpayers' dollars, not Labor or Liberal dollars.

I relish this opportunity to address the chamber on the subject of the Bruce Highway. The Bruce Highway is an important freight and transport corridor up the entire Queensland coast. It is effectively a lifeline between Brisbane and the rest of the state, especially for places like Rockhampton, Marlborough, Yeppoon, Sarina and Mackay. With huge freight trucks, livestock carriers and general motor traffic, the issue of road safety on the Bruce is a very important one. As you have heard today, after much lobbying by the National Party, the federal government has a $6.7 billion long-term plan to 'spruce the Bruce'. This equates to the biggest project agenda in Australia's history. For this, I acknowledge my retired colleague, and former Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, who did tremendous work around lobbying for the Bruce Highway.

My electorate of Capricornia is our nation's official gateway to northern Australia and, already, $700 million of work linked to the Bruce has either been completed, is underway or will soon start in my region alone. I am delighted to inform the chamber of what work has been officially opened or is starting in the three short years that I have been the federal member. In Capricornia, on the southern side of Rockhampton, the Australian government has invested more than $210 million at the entrance to Australia's beef capital—the true beef capital of Australia! The aim of this was to improve traffic flow and road safety and ensure that the city remains open to freight and traffic movement during floods.

I am proud that the Liberal-National coalition funded the lion's share of stage 2 of this project—the biggest part of this reconstruction program—known as Yeppen South stage 2. Here, the coalition contributed $136 million towards stage 2, which was one of my 2013 election promises. The Yeppen South stage 2 roadworks have resulted in the longest bridge on the Bruce Highway in Queensland and improved access into the city significantly. The Deputy Prime Minister officially opened this section in December last year.

There has been significant spending also on other parts of the Bruce Highway in Capricornia in recent times, including: $8.5 million to engineer two new overtaking lanes to make the Bruce Highway safer between Koumala and Sarina; $9.2 million to realign truck access and improve the flow of traffic on the Bruce Highway in the city of Rockhampton, specifically at the George and Albert streets intersection; $7.9 million for new northbound and southbound overtaking lanes on the Bruce Highway south of Marlborough; $15 million to fix up the Hay Point Road turnoff near Sarina under our Black Spot Program; and $1.2 million to Mackay Regional Council to fix the intersection of Horse and Jockey Road and Landsdowne Road at Racecourse. During the federal election, we also announced $60 million for a four-lane highway between Gracemere and Rockhampton. This section connects the Capricorn Highway to the Bruce Highway at a notoriously busy intersection on the outskirts of Rockhampton, where 20,000 commuters, on top of freight and livestock trucks, attempt to enter the city at peak times each day.

Further north in Capricornia, the Bruce Highway is undergoing major reconstruction to make way for the Mackay Ring Road—$360 million has been provided by the federal government. But, as they say in the TV ads, 'But wait, there's more!' I am pleased to inform the chamber that the Turnbull-Joyce government is spending a further $96.8 million to create a four-lane section on the Bruce Highway on the northern outskirts of Rockhampton. Construction was originally due to commence mid-2018 and scheduled for completion by late-2019, weather permitting. However, the first $13.8 million of the Turnbull-Joyce federal government funding has been brought forward to fast-track stage 1. Work is already underway to generate economic activity in the city. This is strong evidence that our coalition government is delivering real improvements to the Bruce Highway.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Capricornia, but I do ask her to stop incorrectly referring to Rockhampton as the beef capital!

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

I rise to speak on the motion put forward by the member for Fairfax about the Bruce Highway. I know the Bruce Highway very well, not so much as a member of parliament but for a number of reasons: (1) because I am married to someone from Cairns, so I make the journey up to Cairns for Christmas pretty regularly and (2) because I was a union organiser working in private schools—all the private schools in Capricornia, Wide Bay and Fairfax. I lived on the Bruce Highway for many, many years.

To put up a motion asking for more work on the Bruce Highway, as the member for Fairfax has done—seen through the prism of the fact that his government has committed 118 million fewer dollars to the Bruce Highway since the previous budget—is obviously a bit embarrassing. I wish the transport minister, the member for Gippsland, was here so that we could talk to him and ask him to explain how he let this motion come through. I hope he did not do it to embarrass a Queenslander—I know he would not do that. But obviously, as a member of the Labor Party, I am very proud of those 24 projects that are taking place on the Bruce, because I know they will benefit the Queensland economy—it would be better if 23 of them had not been funded by Labor, and we actually had some additional money coming in. But we know that there is more to be done on the Bruce Highway, particularly from Fairfax through to the Brisbane CBD.

The Bruce Highway is an essential link. I know of the traffic accident that the member for Fairfax referred to, as my next-door neighbours were in the backlog behind it. We need to get it right—particularly that connection between the Pine River and the Caloundra Road interchange, where there has been a number of safety issues and flood immunity issues. We need to get the infrastructure right so that we meet those expected future traffic volumes. Any time you head south between the Boundary Road interchange and the Pine River bridge on weekdays, and between the Caboolture River Bridge and the Pine River bridge on weekends, you know that it is snarled up. This is creating frustration and difficulty for Queensland commuters. We know that there are more houses being built in there all the time; I have a brother in the construction industry who is working around that northern part of Brisbane and the Pine Rivers area. In relation to the upgrade to this section of the highway—this $8 million project—we need to get it right, and the Queensland government needs to plan thoroughly and carefully so that the right engineering decisions are made.

Planning on this scale is no small task. The preliminary evaluations and project proposal reports must be created in order to determine how best to improve this crucial national highway. During the global financial crisis we had some very immediate attempts to get money out into the economy—some short-term, some medium-term and some longer term. The highway did receive a lot of injections of funds under the Labor Party during the global financial crisis. Obviously, with a tighter budget we just cannot pump money into it in the way that we would like to. I know that the Bruce Highway has been inundated during these major rain events; I know it affected Moreton back in 2011. We need to get this important transport corridor right, and we need to get the flood mitigation right when we construct it, rather than coming back to repair it after the floods.

I am hoping that the LNP members who are attempting to politicise the Bruce Highway remember in their speeches that we need to get the planning phase right. But it would help if the federal Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development actually had some extra funds for these projects. They are a substantial undertaking. Perhaps the Queensland government would benefit from the federal government reimbursing the $1.1 billion that has been spent on natural disaster repairs, including the flood and cyclone recovery works in Bundaberg after the damage from Cyclone Oswald, and the repairs to Brisbane's river ferry terminals. If that money flowed into the Queensland government from the Turnbull government, perhaps that could help Queensland roll out these repairs to the Bruce. That might be a better use of funds, rather than engaging in these cheap politics.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Bruce Highway is indeed the very backbone of our growing region of the Sunshine Coast.

Families, farmers small businesses owners and students all rely on the Bruce as the one and only direct link between the coast and Brisbane. The Turnbull coalition government believes in the Bruce Highway and understands its importance to the Sunshine Coast and to all Queenslanders. In fact, the coalition has already provided $6.7 billion for the Bruce Highway, and it makes me proud that I am part of a government that is committed to fixing this most vital infrastructure lifeline.

Let me give you an example of our steadfast commitment. On 16 September we announced the successful tender for the long-awaited upgrade to a section of the Bruce Highway vital to the Sunshine Coast, the stretch between Caloundra Road interchange and the Sunshine Motorway. This $929.3 million project funded, 80 per cent by the federal government, involves widening the highway to six lanes, as well as a major upgrade to the Sunshine Motorway interchange and reconfiguring the Caloundra Road interchange.

This section is used by around 60,000 vehicles each day, travelling north and south between Brisbane and Gympie, and east and west between the coast and the Hinterland. This upgrade has been a long time coming and is the result of many years of lobbying by the coast's federal and state LNP members. Indeed, it is a great win for the tens of thousands of local motorists who rely on this section of the Bruce Highway every day to get to work, operate their business or simply get the kids to school.

As the member for Fisher the vast majority of people in my electorate will directly benefit from this upgrade through reduced congestion, better safety measures and improved travel times. However, now that we are in the process of delivering this vital piece of infrastructure for the Sunshine Coast, we cannot rest on our laurels. To the contrary, my local LNP colleagues, the member for Fairfax and the member for Wide Bay, are now more determined than ever to supercharge our 'Boost the Bruce' campaign and ensure work to widen the highway between the Sunshine Coast and Caboolture from four lanes to six, including flood proofing the highway between Caboolture and Steve Irwin Way, and that begins as soon as possible.

Let me assure you this is not a pie-in-the-sky dream; this is a serious goal that must be realised, because the people of the Sunshine Coast cannot wait any longer. In fact, an upgrade of this scale is long overdue. The almost daily accidents and Sydney-like traffic jams are testament to that. To this end, the Bruce Highway planning study was announced on 3 July 2015, following a $6.4 million contribution from the federal government and $1.6 million from the state. Again, we put up the bulk of the money because we believe in the Bruce Highway and know only too well that the Bruce is the Sunshine Coast's most vital transport artery. To date, our calls for the Queensland government to fast-track the planning study have fallen on deaf ears. In response to a question on notice from LNP main roads spokesperson, Andrew Powell, earlier this year, the Queensland government advised the planning study is not due to be released until mid-2018.

The Sunshine Coast is one of the fastest-growing regions in Australia. It is an area blessed with smart people with great ideas and business acumen. The coast is growing as a hotbed for innovation and start-up companies. Our farmers and fishers are responsible for delivering some of the best quality produce money can buy. The people of the Sunshine Coast simply cannot wait nearly another two years for the completion of a planning study. We need it fast tracked and we need it now. I do not think any fair-minded person would think it is unreasonable to insist that the study be completed by the middle of next year. By doing so, we can allocate funding and get the machinery rolling to deliver this most vital project, one that we on the Sunshine Coast believe is a project of national importance, essential to our future prosperity.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.