Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. In a seat like mine in rural and regional Queensland—which takes in two-thirds of the city of Ipswich, all the Lockyer Valley and the old Boonah Shire and the now Scenic Rim region—this particular legislation will make an appreciable difference not just to the administration of the council but also to the lives of truck drivers and the citizens in those areas.

The bill has two purposes: to allow funding of heavy vehicle facilities—for example, off-road rest stops—and to extend for a further five years the Roads to Recovery program, funded under the AusLink (National Land Transport) Act 2005. The current funding period expires on 30 June 2009. AusLink is a great thing. The national transport program has a number of elements, including black spot projects, Roads to Recovery, national projects, strategic regional projects and research and technology projects. The bill amends the definition of a road to include heavy vehicle facilities, to ensure that rest stops, parking bays, decoupling facilities and electronic monitoring facilities are included. This will ensure that the federal government will fund the same under a $70 million heavy vehicle safety productivity package.

I do not intend to go through the details of that aspect, but I would urge the coalition to change their minds, because the bill which they have opposed and the determination in the Senate will ensure that the heavy vehicle sector pays its fair and equitable share of road costs incurred by government. It is really a disgrace the coalition have opposed this bill. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has consulted with stakeholders, including the Australian Trucking Association, and they support our position. I would urge the coalition to change their perspective in relation to the heavy vehicle issue and to support our position.

I want to speak principally on the Roads to Recovery program, the black spot funding and of course the road assistance given to the councils in my particular area. This bill extends the Roads to Recovery program until 30 June 2014. Local government, particularly in my area, is responsible for more than 75 per cent of all the roads. This bill will increase the funding under this program from $300 million to $350 million per annum. The proposed clause 87 in the bill requires the minister to publish lists relating to AusLink Roads to Recovery. There is an additional requirement in the bill under clause 87 to allow an amount of money to be allocated for eligible projects in a state or a part thereof where the entity to receive funds has not yet been determined. This will ensure the funds can be preserved even where there is no local council or entity to finance the infrastructure—for example, bridges and access roads in remote areas. Fortunately in my electorate of Blair that is not the case because I have, as I say, two-thirds of the city of Ipswich, all the Lockyer Valley—and the Lockyer Valley Regional Council has newly been amalgamated—and about a third to a quarter of the Scenic Rim Regional Council.

It has been terrific to see the amount of money that has been poured into my electorate. I noticed that the member for Parkes waxed lyrical about the fact that $10 million will be put into the Ipswich CBD in my electorate. The coalition gave the city of Ipswich nothing in 11½ years. The Rudd Labor government is pouring huge amounts of resources into what has been described accurately as the fastest-growing area in South-East Queensland—the city of Ipswich. We are pleased that the Rudd Labor government is injecting huge amounts of money into Ipswich, after many years of inertia, ignorance, indolence and inactivity by the coalition.

In terms of the Roads to Recovery funding allocations for Queensland councils, the Ipswich City Council will receive $1,211,534 and the Lockyer Valley Regional Council will receive $1,300,247. In addition to that, under the chairpersonship of Bernie Ripoll, the member for Oxley, the Queensland black spots consultative panel has been looking at the black spots on the local roads in Queensland. The Rudd Labor government have announced they will deliver $9.5 million to help fix 64 dangerous black spots on local roads in Queensland. This includes improving roundabouts, improving dangerous intersections, installing speed warnings and traffic signals, and upgrading pedestrian crossings.

In 2009-10, the Rudd government will deliver on its election commitment to increase black spot funding by 33 per cent up to a record $60 million nationally. As the member for Oxley has said recently, for every $1 invested in fixing black spots, around $14 is returned to the community through a reduction in the number and cost of crashes. In my electorate of Blair, the Rudd Labor government will invest $295,000 to fix three dangerous black spots on local roads. These include $205,000 to install traffic signals at the intersection of Whitehill Road and Cascade Street, a notorious intersection in the suburb of Raceview adjacent to my home in Flinders View; $70,000 to upgrade traffic signals at the Jacaranda Street, Norman Street and Chermside Road intersections in East Ipswich, where I actually grew up; and $20,000 to install curve warning signs and upgrade line markings along the Boonah-Fassifern road in Boonah. If you have ever driven on that road, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will know how important that will be.

In addition to that, the councils in my area will receive a record increase in financial assistance through both general purpose grants and road grants. For example, Ipswich City Council will receive $3,551,525 in general purpose grants and $2,005,732 in roads grants, being a total of $5,557,257 in assistance. That is an increase of 4.29 per cent on the previous year. The Lockyer Valley Regional Council will receive in general purpose grants $1,778,881 and in roads grants $988,492, being a total of $2,767,373—an increase of 4.81 per cent. The biggest winner is the Scenic Rim Regional Council, which will receive in general purpose grants $1,816,618 and in roads grants $1,210,302, being a total of $3,026,920—an increase of 7.83 per cent.

Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of being at the Boonah Arts Festival. I am a major sponsor of the Boonah Arts Festival. There are 600 people in the Boonah Arts Collective and it is a small community. I was speaking to the Mayor of the Scenic Rim, John Brent, a well-known National Party figure who thanked me very much for the extra funding that the Scenic Rim received from the Rudd Labor government. I am always pleased to receive plaudits and applause from those on the opposite side of the political divide.

The most important road funding project in my electorate would have to be the Ipswich Motorway. Recently, I met with officials from the Queensland Department of Main Roads who described the Ipswich Motorway as the No. 1 road-funding priority in South-East Queensland. It is interesting, because the previous government, in their ‘2020 Plan for Australia’s Transport Future’ on page 32, actually excluded part of the motorway under their great ‘Go for Growth’ slogan. They actually excluded part of the motorway forever from road funding. We saw 11½ years of denial on the Ipswich Motorway. The Ipswich Motorway is often described by those who live in Ipswich and rural areas outside it as the Ipswich car park because people get stuck in the traffic and cannot move. It is a four-lane national highway and it has been a national highway since 1974. Instead of doing it up like the M1 between Brisbane and the Gold Coast was done up, the Howard coalition government fudged it and flopped around for ages on the Ipswich Motorway. They should have done it, as they were urged to do by all the councils in the local area, by the Liberal Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman, by the state coalition opposition—I should call them the LNP now—and by the Queensland Labor government. It could have easily been done in four sections and we could be driving along the fully upgraded Ipswich Motorway right now.

It has taken the Rudd Labor government to fix the Ipswich Motorway, and that is what we are doing. The Rudd Labor government is investing $2.2 billion to upgrade the busiest sections of the Ipswich Motorway: $255 million is being put towards the Ipswich Motorway-Logan Motorway interchange, which will be completed by 2009; $700 million is going towards the Wacol to Darra section, which will be completed by 2010; a further $100 million has been set aside for the Wacol to Darra section stage 2; and in excess of $1 billion has been pledged to upgrade the most critical section, the Dinmore to Goodna section, which we committed to during the election campaign.

Yesterday I, along with the member for Oxley, the state members in the local area and the Mayor of Ipswich, Paul Pisasale, had the pleasure to be present when we pressed the go button for the Ipswich Motorway upgrade. The Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, was there with the Queensland Minister for Main Roads and Local Government, Warren Pitt, at a very important announcement which ended years of uncertainty in respect of the Dinmore to Goodna section of the Ipswich Motorway. The minister and the Premier announced the project team which will undertake this major upgrade which will benefit my electorate so marvellously in the future. The project team is known as the Origin Alliance and it includes Abigroup Ltd, Fulton Hogan, Seymour Whyte Constructions, SMEC Australia and Parsons Brinckerhoff Australia. They are all partners in this huge construction: eight kilometres of road, 17 bridges demolished and 31 new bridges built. The Ipswich Motorway upgrade between Dinmore and Goodna will play a key role in the strategy of the federal government and the Queensland government strategy to build South-East Queensland into the fastest-growing and strongest-performing economic base in the country.

Yesterday’s announcement ended forever the uncertainty about the project and the blame game is over. The people of Ipswich are sick and tired of being used as a political football when it comes to road funding. This project will offer relief from congestion for the 70,000 residents who use the motorway every day and the up to 90,000 to 100,000 people who use it at the busiest times of the day.

In addition to the motorway upgrade, cycling and pedestrian facilities will be provided, which will ease traffic congestion and improve safety. It means that the present four lanes will be upgraded to a minimum of six lanes. The area near the Redbank Plaza and the site office will have up to 12 lanes of traffic. The current Ipswich four-lane motorway will become a service road, there will be six lanes adjacent to that and another two-lane service road will be constructed to the south.

This is in contrast to the inactivity we saw on the part of the Howard government. In April 1999, the Howard government said that we should do a study about an upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway. At that stage, the estimated cost of a total upgrade was $600 million. We are doing it now, but if we had done it when it should have been done, a great deal of time, money and effort would not have been wasted because of the previous government’s indolence. It should have been done when it was first mentioned. I get no complaints at my office about the Ipswich Motorway upgrade because the people can see it being done.

In the next four months the project team will undertake detailed design and preconstruction activities. We allocated $5 million in the budget for that purpose. There is no turning back—the Dinmore to Goodna section of the motorway will be upgraded. That section straddles two electorates: Oxley and Blair. I commend the member for Oxley for his many years of agitation, argument and advocacy with me and others about this section of the motorway.

The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics states that, if we do not alleviate the congestion in South-East Queensland by investing in new infrastructure, urban congestion will grow and cost the local economy an estimated $3 billion. That is why projects like the Ipswich Motorway upgrade are so important. In fact, it is the biggest single road infrastructure project ever undertaken by the Commonwealth government. It is vital not only for the health and safety of local residents but also for the economic development of Ipswich.

About 400 people will be working at the site at Redbank Plains and up to 1,500 people will be working 24/7 on this project. A new network of service roads will be constructed down the side that will take up to 25 per cent of local traffic off the motorway. That means local residents will no longer have to use the motorway for short, local trips. That will ease congestion on the motorway and improve safety.

I have been advocating for a long time that the students at St Peter Claver College at Riverview, Dinmore should have a proper bridge across the motorway so they do not have to rat-run between the lights in the morning and the afternoon. I am pleased that the design will incorporate that change. I was recently thanked by the principal of the college for my advocacy on this issue. He recognised that I have been pushing this for a long time. Hundreds of kids in the local community go to that school. I am pleased that the federal government has allocated $2.4 million to the school and that the building project is up and running.

When the final design is complete and the community consultation is over, the construction will begin in February 2009. My constituents can contact me now if they wish to see the draft design. I have a copy of it in my electorate office. This project means that the people of Ipswich will have the road which they deserve and which they have needed for so long. It means that, after many years of failure, frustration and fluffing on this issue by the Howard coalition government, the people of Ipswich, in partnership with the Ipswich City Council, the Queensland government and the Rudd Labor government, will have their future provided for in terms of roads and construction.

This is a big-picture initiative. It is a vital link not only for my electorate but also for yours, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, and the electorate of Moreton and others. I commend the Rudd Labor government for the work it has done. I personally thank the Treasurer and the Prime Minister, who have driven on this road many times and who understand the issue. I commend this bill to the House. It is crucial for my electorate that this legislation be passed. I am very pleased to speak on it and to commend the bill to the House.

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