Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk about a number of projects that are listed on the Infrastructure Australia Priority List, with high-priority initiatives listed. It's really important to understand that one in seven people in this country live in South-East Queensland. It generates about one in six of the dollars that go to what we call economic development in the country. The growth in South-East Queensland cannot be underestimated. My home city of Ipswich has about 240,000 people. By 2050, there will be about 550,000, and most of that growth will be in the southern corridor from around Ripley, Deebing Heights and Springfield, so road infrastructure and rail infrastructure is really critical in terms of catering for jobs and helping with the livelihoods and lifestyle of people in that area.

I want to talk about a number of initiatives about which I feel that governments, at both levels but particularly the government at the federal level, have let us down on. The first is the Ipswich Motorway between Ipswich and Brisbane, which is a very important motorway, not just for Ipswich but for the Lockyer Valley, the Scenic Rim, Toowoomba, the Somerset Region and beyond. It's a great driver of transport and logistics as well as commuters.

The Labor government has always strongly supported the upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway, from Dinmore through to Darra and beyond to Rocklea. The coalition opposed the upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway for election after election. They eventually had a Damascus road conversion experience in 2016. To their credit they finally agreed and have agreed with the Queensland Labor government. We've seen an upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway from Suscatand Street towards the Oxley roundabout. It's made a huge difference—100,000 vehicles a day go through there.

But there's a final stage that needs to be done on the Oxley roundabout back to what we used to call the Centenary Interchange—bottlenecks from the three lanes back to the two lanes. At the last election the federal Labor opposition made a commitment of $500 million to work with the Queensland government to start that process. It's really critical. It's the final the stage of the Ipswich Motorway, and I'd urge the Morrison government to work with the Palaszczuk Labor government to get that project underway and adopt a bipartisan approach to that infrastructure. It's really, really important for my constituents. It's actually located, almost always, in the member for Moreton's electorate, and it's located in the member for Oxley's electorate as well. It's a very important project, and I call on the Morrison government to work with the Palaszczuk government and to fund that particular project.

The next initiative is the Cunningham Highway, which is about 4.7 kilometres of road, from Yamanto to Ebenezer Creek. This road is critical to the RAAF base at Amberley. The Queensland Times has recorded that on a number of occasions, and I've spoken about this particular road many times. To the credit of both sides of politics at a federal level, we put $170 million in commitments towards upgrading that particular road. But, at both sides of politics at a federal level, we've spent $1.3 billion on the RAAF base at Amberley but haven't fixed the road outside. So we need a commitment there. The current government has done some work in relation to this at a proportion of 80-20 in terms of maintenance on that part of the Cunningham Highway and beyond, west towards Willowbank. It's so important for the Willowbank motorsport precinct as well. But 8½ thousand people work on the RAAF base at Amberley every day, and it clogs from about 6 am to 9 am and from about 4 pm to 7 pm. It really does clog, so they stage the departure and the entry of workers working in that area because of the congestion on the road. We're talking about 2½ thousand heavy vehicles a day and 17,000 vehicles experiencing heavy congestion. That was in 2018. It's beyond that now. I really call on the Palaszczuk Labor government as well as the Morrison government to get together to come to a commitment in relation to that.

That road was last costed at about $345 million. A business case needs to be lodged by the Palaszczuk Labor government. I wrote to them and now Minister Mark Bailey, Minister for Transport and Main Roads in the Palaszczuk government. I wrote to Minister Bailey and the Deputy Prime Minister in June 2019, calling on them to work together to come to an agreement in relation to this. It's such an important project. If they ever went to the Willowbank area group meeting, as I do on a regular basis, they would see the frustration of the residents who live in that area. It's so critical for our economic development. It's an appalling situation, when you think about it, that we could spend well over $1 billion on the RAAF base at Amberley but not fix the road outside. If you've ever been to the Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway, you would see how the road gets congested. It's absolutely critical that governments at both levels work together. So I call on both levels of government to work together to get this project done.

The next project I want to talk about is a project which really causes a lot of problems for people on the north side of Ipswich, and it is what's commonly called in Ipswich the Mount Crosby interchange. From Dinmore through to Helidon Spa along the Warrego Highway is a priority initiative according to Infrastructure Australia. The worst intersection there used to be the at the Blacksoil interchange, but we made a commitment and funded it. The state government came to the party when we were in government, and it's been fixed. It's saved lives and improved the economic development of the people in the Somerset, in the Lockyer Valley and in Ipswich, but this particular interchange is shocking. Every time you drive out there, the road is banked back in the afternoon on the 100-kilometre stretch. It's such an unsafe situation, on both sides—west on the Warrego Highway, trying to get to Karalee, and trying to get to Tivoli, coming from the east from Brisbane, heading west. It's so unsafe. There have been accidents there. The current proposal is simply inadequate, as I've said in local newspapers.

The Morrison government has come to an agreement with the Palaszczuk government for a $22 million upgrade. Both governments put in $400 million over the forward estimates—$320 million from this government and $80 million from the Palaszczuk government. They've come up with an inadequate solution. The consultation process has finished, and the feedback I've got as a local federal member is that the current proposal, which doesn't fix the off-ramps, cuts off Cole street and doesn't touch the one-lane-each-way bridge, is simply not good enough.

I've made my views very clear to Main Roads in Queensland, to the people who are doing the project as well as the ones doing the Warrego Highway—they are two separate groups, believe it or not, in Main Roads, Queensland—that it's simply not good enough and that the federal government and the state government need to get together. I've made my views very clear in the local newspapers. I call on Jim Madden, the state member for Ipswich West, I call on Minister Bailey and I call on people who represent the area—Christian Rowan, the member for Moggill, and other members—to work together in a bipartisan way to come up with a better solution.

We've seen the Blacksoil interchange and how that's been a great solution for the part where the Brisbane Valley Highway meets the Warrego Highway. Let's get a Brisbane Valley-Warrego highway solution like the Blacksoil interchange. That would solve the problem. We need something like that. It's not good enough at the moment. I call on governments at both levels to put aside partisan differences and work together to fix this problem. There's $400 million on the table—$80 million from the state and $320 million from the federal government. How about you spend $50 million or $60 million extra of that at the worst intersection along the highway and fix the bridge and the off-ramps? That would make a big difference. I did a three-hour mobile opposite Karalee shopping centre at Chapters bookshop and cafe—it wasn't three hours; it was actually four in the end—and nearly every person I spoke to talked to me about the current proposal on the Mount Crosby interchange and said that it's not good enough. You need to go back to TMR and come back with a better solution to finally fix the problem.

I also mentioned to the Deputy Prime Minister that he should work with the Ipswich City Council to provide money for the business case for the rail link from Ipswich to Springfield. I call on him formally to do so. I've spoken to him a couple of times about it. This is not a partisan issue either. This is a bipartisan proposal. It's being done by the Ipswich City Council, with money from the Queensland Labor government. We really need to work together. I call on the Deputy Prime Minister to put money in the budget towards this and give it to the Ipswich City Council so a business case can be developed.