Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Prime Minister, Queensland minister for road safety Mark Bailey and the state member for Maryborough have a plan to build a Tiaro bypass that puts road users in danger and lacks vision for a growing Maryborough and Fraser Coast. When building a new road, safety should always be the first priority, but sadly, in this case, it wasn't. Only after my protests did the road safety minister cobble together some idea of a dividing barrier, but it's still only on a dangerous two-lane road. If you truly have a vision for zero fatalities you don't build the road the government is planning to build around Tiaro. It is just not good enough.

I have a vision to see Maryborough as a thriving economic and manufacturing centre that will need the best road infrastructure to support that economic capacity, with the highest safety standards for families, tourists and transport workers. I ask: does the state member for Maryborough share this vision or not? Interstate truck drivers tell me how they dread this section of road, a black spot heavily used by B-doubles, cars and grey nomads towing caravans. We need a four-lane road so the families of those essential workers can relax, knowing that the journey will be an easy and safe one. The government's planned highway is an unsafe two-lane highway of yesterday, not a safe four-lane highway for tomorrow.