House debates

Tuesday, 16 March 2021

Statements by Members

Ryan Electorate: Roads

1:34 pm

Photo of Julian SimmondsJulian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

At the last election I made a commitment to fix local roads, and that's exactly what I am doing with federal funds I've secured for key projects across Ryan. One of these important projects is upgrading the Kenmore roundabout. After fighting for funding, the federal government and I delivered $12.5 million to this much-needed project at this congested and dangerous bottleneck. With the support of Dr Christian Rowan MP, the member for Moggill, we were able to drag the Labor state government, kicking and screaming—frankly, to get them to do anything is a miracle—to match the funding in September 2019. They have finally released some plans. In the period between then and now, we had heard absolutely nothing but crickets. I've been lobbying persistently to get them moving, given the funding was all available, and to get the Labor roads minister, Mark Bailey, to get on with the job. He's taken months and months, but finally we have some plans released for the community, which is what I want and what the locals want.

What's important now is that we get your views on these draft plans and that we hear from you, the community of Ryan—the people who are trying to get home to their families more safely and more quickly but are faced with this dangerous bottleneck and congestion point every single day. Have a look at the plans. Make sure that you have your say so that we can get this project right. I want you to feed in your feedback both to TMR and to me and Dr Christian Rowan so that together, as a community, we can fix local roads.