Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I associate myself with the comments of the former speaker, because the Rush family are from Mitchell, in my electorate, in Queensland. I know many of the family. In fact, I grew up with the parents. I have not had direct contact with them for many, many years, but I certainly feel for them and I would like to be associated with the member for Werriwa’s comments.

I grieve tonight, in this grievance debate, about an issue to do with the Warrego Highway, in my electorate. Prior to the last federal election, the coalition committed some $128 million to the upgrade of the Warrego Highway from about Dalby right through to Mitchell, west of my home town of Roma. I know the current government committed some $55 million for the same section of road. The money that the coalition committed was to be spent from 1 July this year, and we would love to know when the government intends to start to roll out its commitment of $55 million.

It is a particular area of the road that I am very concerned about. There is an area east of Chinchilla, between Chinchilla and Dalby, where there have been some tragic deaths on the road—on a highway that is in desperate need of upgrading. The tragic accidents could have been avoided had there been some money spent on that road. So it is an urgent need and it will save lives if we can only get some of this money committed sooner rather than later.

But I want to return to the road between Roma and Mitchell. Last Friday night, a truck operator in my home town of Roma went out to Mitchell. He has a reasonable fleet of trucks in general haulage and also livestock transport. He got to Mitchell at 11 o’clock on Friday night—hardly the start of a working week. He drove into town and found road trains with cattle on board and he found empty trailers there. West of the town he found that there were some 64 trailers on what they call the ‘pad’, where they decouple these trucks to go the last 90 kilometres into Roma. The situation is this: these road trains are allowed to progress as far east as Mitchell—with three trailers, whether they are configured with general freight from NQX coming back from Darwin or livestock.

The situation is now desperate. We have to get this money to flow as quickly as possible. Can I just outline the situation? Many people in an urban situation might find this hard to comprehend. Just west of Mitchell is where the truck operators normally come to. They decouple the last trailer, the third trailer, and they take the two trailers 90 kilometres into Roma. Someone has to come back in a prime mover and pick up the third trailer and take it 90 kilometres into Roma. Why Roma in this case? Roma is the largest cattle-selling centre in Australia and that is where these cattle—thousands upon thousands of them—are destined for market each week.

This truck operator got to the pad, where there were 64 trailers. Just to outline the significance of the number of trailers: it might have been 64 at this point but 10 kilometres west of that point there were another five triples—that is 15 trailers—plus another three empty ones. Why couldn’t they come further east? Because they could not get off the road further east to decouple. Obviously, the safety of motorists and other operators at night is of paramount importance to these truck operators. Further west, there were another five of them beside the road waiting to move further east.

But, worse than that, 90 kilometres west of Mitchell is the town of Morven. In Morven there were five triples full of cattle—that is, five prime movers with three trailers each behind them—and there were three empty ones. They were waiting to get an opportunity to travel to Mitchell so that they could decouple their last trailer, go on into Roma and then get someone to come and pick up the third trailer. They could not move from Morven, the last 90 kilometres, because there was no room on the place where they have normally decoupled these trailers for a number of years.

I will paint a picture about where these livestock come from. Most come out of paddocks five to seven days earlier. At the moment, a lot of these cattle come from the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory. They would have probably been on the road for about four days. They would have travelled for the first day and a half to Mount Isa or maybe to Cloncurry, where they are unloaded. They would have a spell for a couple of days and then be put on a truck for another 12 to 14 hours to get to Mitchell. They then have 90 kilometres to go to get to their destination.

The point I am raising is that here we had about 128 trailers sitting from Mitchell to Morven waiting to do the last 90 kilometres. They could not get onto the pad and they could not move east. If they did move, only the truck drivers could look after the other freight trailers that might have been there. Of course, that is not to mention that, with regulations coming in shortly, truck drivers are only going to be able to do a 14-hour shift. After that they have to have a 10-hour rest. Trucks that are caught at Morven do not have an extra driver and have to wait 10 hours before they can move the next 90 kilometres. These cattle might have been in transit for five, six or seven days, coming from up near Darwin, the Barkly Tablelands or up in the gulf.

That is the situation that the beef industry is confronting—as well as the truck operators. To enable these trucks to come further east into Roma, we have to make sure that this road is upgraded so that the type 2 road trains—that is, a prime mover with three trailers—can travel the last 90 kilometres and be safe and not be a hazard to other traffic on the highway. In the interim, until this road is upgraded, we also have to look at whether these trucks could travel east under a permit now. Roma is the largest cattle-selling centre in Australia with 8,000 to 9,000 head of cattle a week sold there. At least half of them travel for five to seven days by road train, and they then confront this situation—90 kilometres from the destination where they could be unloaded and fed for three or four days before the sale. It is a major economic issue for the beef industry. Given that the beef industry is Queensland’s second-largest export earner by value, the minister for transport and the minister responsible for that road funding should immediately start to roll out this funding, rather than wait another 12 months, 18 months or two years to start to roll the money out.

I will just repeat that we are talking about something like 128 trailers. Queensland Rail operate under NQX. They are a freight company that travels from Brisbane to Darwin. They were waiting for four hours to find a spot on the pad so that they could hook their third trailer on and head west to Darwin. That is the situation. You might say that it is as bad as some of our coal ports, where ships wait for days—in fact, in some cases, for months—to get into port to load. Livestock, freight forwarders and freight operators are confronted with a situation where they are so near to their destination, yet they are not even able to get on the pad to decouple the last trailer to take the two trailers on into Roma. In some cases, they have to wait 90 kilometres west of where the pad is before they can bring their rigs into Mitchell to do that decoupling.

The other aspect of this is that, even when there are not as many in this situation as we saw last Friday night in that pad, these trailers can be left while the trucks go on into Roma. There is no security there and quite often tarpaulins get lost—stolen. Tyres, which are obviously of enormous value on trailers of that capacity, can be stolen. No-one is there necessarily to look after the livestock. Sometimes they have to try and bring someone out—this is about 10 kilometres west of the small town of Mitchell—to at least keep an eye on the livestock.

It is a huge issue for the beef industry, as well as the general freight operators, to be confronted with. It is just not acceptable. We as a coalition committed some $128 million to start upgrading this road as of 1 July this year. I am calling on this minister: if he really believes in the welfare of animals, the productivity of the trucking and freight industry and the value of exports from our beef industry, he will start to roll that money out as of 1 July this year.