Alex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the minister update the House on the government’s support for better transport infrastructure in Queensland, particularly the Bruce Highway, which is so important to the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Minister for Transport and Regional Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Fairfax for his question. He will probably have heard that a group of south-east Queensland mayors are proposing to come to Canberra to complain that the Australian government is not contributing enough for infrastructure works in south-east Queensland towards the state government’s south-east regional plan. Putting aside whether or not the Commonwealth government should be paying for a state government plan, most of it probably would not be necessary if the state government had not neglected infrastructure in south-east Queensland over recent decades. They have not yet got over their period of neglect. In fact, in last year’s Queensland budget they put in $296 million for transport infrastructure but in fact spent only $164 million—a 33 per cent underexpenditure and yet they are asking the Commonwealth for more money.

The mayors were particularly concerned about having some additional funding for the Ipswich Motorway. But of course we have committed $556 million for the Ipswich Motorway; $160 million for the Logan Motorway junction—that money has been available to the state for at least a year but they have not got on to spending it yet—$320 million for widening the Wakool to Darra section; $66 million for the Granad road intersection; and $10 million to do the work for the northern section between Dinmore and Goodna, being the planning work so that we can get on with those projects. They also asked us for some money for around Caboolture. There is $200 million being spent around Caboolture, and I am sure the honourable member for Longman and others would be very pleased to see the progress that is being made there. They wanted money for the Pacific Highway. There is $120 million in the budget for our commitment to the Tugun bypass. We have paid off the $163 million commitment to the Pacific Highway two years early, and of course there is a whole range of other projects which we are funding as well. So when the state government has spent the money that we have already allocated, that will be the time to come and ask for some more.

The mayors would also like some money for the Bruce Highway. The honourable member for Fairfax and I would like to see some money spent on the Bruce Highway as well but, as I have reported to the House previously, we cannot spend any money on the Bruce Highway because the Beattie government are intent on flooding it. They are determined to go ahead with the Traveston Dam, which will flood at least nine kilometres of the Bruce Highway, plus all of the favoured options for upgrading. Beattie is still determined, it seems, to build this dam. He was actually quoted as saying the other day that he will build the dam no matter what. The fact that he has not done any environmental, engineering, social or feasibility studies is beside the point; he is going to build it and he is going to build it in spite of the fact that the University of Queensland has told him that half of the water will evaporate or leak away because the dam is being built in country which is not suitable for a dam.

Indeed the minister has now admitted that, from their drilling, the wall cannot be built on the site which the Queensland government has located for this dam. In addition to that, they have also had to admit that this dam was only rated fifth on the list of priorities for the preferred site for a dam for south-east Queensland. It was rated fifth but it was elevated above everything else. In spite of all the evidence, Premier Beattie is going to build it. Despite the fact that it is going to flood 900 farms and it will require a bund to be built around the town of Kandanga so that the town does not go under water, despite the fact that the cost has blown out to $2 billion, $3 billion or $4 billion, it is still going to be built and the road is going to be flooded irrespective of what the sense might be. I think that if the south-east Queensland mayors want some road funding for the Bruce Highway, the first thing they had better do is persuade Premier Beattie to stop flooding the road so we can get on with building it.