Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

And ambassador, he was indeed. He curiously took the ambassadorship at a significant time in history and perhaps by doing that altered the whole course of political history in Australia. When Vince Gair opened that bridge, it was the latest in engineering and it was a high-level bridge over what had for almost a century been a road and a rail line that actually ran through the bed of the Burdekin River, which in times of flood put it anywhere from three to four metres under water. It was a great event. Of course, in the intervening 52 years that bridge has become entirely incapable of carrying the traffic that now passes along the highway. It is very narrow and it is dangerous. If there are dangerous goods on trucks and there is an incident, the whole highway between the rest of Australia and the productive parts of our country in the north will be blocked.

For some years now I have been calling for a duplication of that bridge. Regrettably, nothing seems to have been done to date. It will be a long-term process, but someone has to make a start on the engineering work necessary. I remember during the last budget the honourable member for Dawson, in whose electorate the bridge is situated, came out with a great announcement that he had got money for the Burdekin Bridge. I thought that was tremendous and really good that someone had heeded my calls and had started work on it. I thought it would take a long time, but I was pleased that they were to start work on a duplication of the Burdekin Bridge. When I read the fine print, of course, there was no such good news. What the honourable member for Dawson was talking about was that he had got $5 million, I think it was, for maintenance of the bridge. Well, hello! The bridge has to be maintained every year, and lauding the fact that a government is doing what it is required to do hardly seemed to me to be a great announcement.

However, urging work is being done. I know the Burdekin Shire Council have been petitioning for work to be started. I am pleased that after a lot of pushing the state Department of Main Roads is starting to look at road allocations which might join up with a new bridge in the not too distant future. I can only urge both the Queensland and the Commonwealth governments to continue the work on that and to properly fund that work so that sooner rather than later we can get a duplicate bridge across the Burdekin River to ensure continuous access between the north and south of Queensland.

Whilst talking about transport of dangerous and other goods in this bill, I want to again draw to senators’ attention the Outback Way, which runs from Winton in Queensland to Laverton in Western Australia. I have to pay tribute to Senator Crossin for her initiative in forming a cross-party Friends of the Outback Way group in Parliament House, which she and I co-chair and which comprises members and senators with an interest in bridging the gap between north-east Queensland and south-west Western Australia and all places in between.

As I have mentioned in the Senate on a number of occasions, back when the Outback Highway Development Council first brought its proposals to Canberra 10 years ago—at the time I was a minister in a relevant area—it was a proposal that I thought had a lot of merit. I did take off six or seven days back then to actually drive from Townsville to Perth across the centre of Australia via the Outback Way. The Outback Highway Development Council has continued its works since then. In a parliamentary recess last month members of the parliamentary Friends of the Outback Way group joined with councillors from the Outback Highway Development Council and councillors from all of the shires along the way at the official opening in Alice Springs of the first permanent office of the Outback Highway Development Council.

The council is shortly to appoint its first permanent employee in the form of a CEO or a business manager who will be based in Alice Springs. The opening took place on Monday, 31 August at Alice Springs and those that were gathered there then drove the road from Alice Springs to Winton, where the annual general meeting of the Outback Highway Development Council was held. The convoy of vehicles travelled from Alice Springs to Boulia, which is just across the Northern Territory-Queensland border, on the first day and then on the second day from Boulia through to Winton.

The Outback Highway Development Council estimated that they only need a tiny $800 million to seal the road, but they are realistic enough to know that it might be difficult for any government to fund that in one lump sum. By the year 2014, they are seeking to have the Outback Way from Laverton to Winton trafficable for family sedans—trafficable in the sense that it will be safe, convenient and not too damaging for a family sedan to drive that road. Those of us who travelled it earlier this month were all in four-wheel drive vehicles. Some of the road is sealed. The road from Alice Springs up the Sturt Highway almost to Harts Range is sealed, but from Harts Range through Tobermory to Boulia is a very difficult road that is not well constructed, although the Northern Territory are spending some $8 million of road works within the Territory.

When you come across the border from the Northern Territory into Queensland, the road from the border to Boulia should be a state road, a Queensland road, and you would hope that the Queensland government would put some money into it. Regrettably, the Queensland government have refused to classify that road as a state highway, so it remains a shire council road that is being funded by the very limited resources of the Boulia Shire Council. They are doing a fantastic job with their own funds, but it is disappointing that the state government could not be more involved there.

The road from Boulia to Winton is sealed all the way. It is an interesting trip and I would encourage senators who want to see the real rural and regional Australia to drive that road some day. It is fascinating country. The road is narrow but it is bitumen sealed. Places like Winton and Boulia are well worth visiting. There is a must-stop destination about halfway between those two towns. After about 2½ hours travelling from either end you come to a place called Middleton, which consists solely of a hotel set in the middle of vast savannah lands. It is quite an interesting spot with a long history as well.

This road across Central Australia cuts about 1,600 kilometres off the trip from Townsville to Perth around the coast. It has very significant tourism influences. Surprisingly, German adventure tourists are already driving the road from Perth to Townsville or Cairns. A lot of work is happening in Germany and around the world to publicise it. It would be a great tourist experience. It will also shorten the freight distances between the north-west mineral province of Queensland and the powerhouse mining areas of Western Australia, thereby making freight much better. It has very significant defence implications as Australia’s largest Army base is in Townsville and our SAS troops are over in Western Australia. There is a lot of military activity in Darwin and our training grounds for Afghanistan are down south near Adelaide. So, if the Army could use the Outback Way as well, it would have very significant defence implications. For that reason, I was delighted that the member for Herbert, who is the shadow parliamentary secretary for defence, was able to come on this trip with me and understand how important this road could be to Australia’s defence in the future. The Outback Way is a great project. I commend it to other senators and I reassert that the coalition will support this bill.