Community & Business
30 July, 2024
Critical steps to coast access road
REPORTS that the Federal Government will not provide the $22 million needed to do a study on alternate road corridors from the northern Tablelands to the coast has not phased Member for Barron River Craig Crawford who is vowing that the State will fund the study.
Last week, it was reported that Federal Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt would not support funding the study unless there was a business case which would most likely fail.
In a letter to Transport Minister Bart Mellish last week, Mr Crawford stressed that two important steps must be taken now to start the process of providing a reliable route to Cairns – commissioning the study into possible corridors and the extension of the National Land Transport Network that would make the Kennedy Highway from Smithfield to Mareeba eligible for significant federal funding.
“It’s about getting the right sequence – I think the Advance Cairns sequence is the correct one – that is to analyse the potential corridors and I’ve come in behind them because I think it’s the right strategy,” Mr Crawford said.
“Park the business case and park all of the noise about how long it’s going to take and all those sorts of things and just go for where are the potential corridors and which ones we think a goer and which ones we are probably wasting our time on.”
He hoped his party would commit to funding the study as part of its election pledges.
“I am certainly putting it forward hoping that it is something that will materialise. But even if it doesn’t come as an election pledge, it doesn’t mean it can’t be done,” Mr Crawford said.
Given the extended time it would take to actually carve a new route through to Cairns, Mr Crawford has revealed he believes the existing Kuranda Range Road could be altered to satisfy the needs of commuters and heavy transport.
“I’m not an engineer, but I think the quickest delivery of an expanded access probably sits within the corridor that we’re currently in because then we don’t have to start afresh,” he said.
“So, that would mean widening the existing road, replacing tight corners with tunnels and bridges, going back to a plan that was around in 2004. That would be the one that you could deliver the quickest, but it’s not necessarily the best.”
He also cautioned against any move to develop a business care at this stage.
“I’m very concerned that if you do a business case, it would fail,” he said.
“Business cases are purely about the economics, they take all the emotion out of out, and it’s purely about if you spend that much money are you going to get a return on it?
“I’m concerned that if economists look at it, it’s actually a small volume of traffic that’s going up and down….we’re just not going to get bang for buck.’”
“And I’m really worried that if it’s not going to fly, what would happen is the government would park it and call it off for 20 years.”
Mr Crawford is adamant that the Federal Government will have to be involved if a better road access to the coast was ever going to become a reality. In 2022, the then Transport Minister Mark Bailey did write to the Federal Government requesting the change but no action was taken.
Mr Crawford said extending the national highway to Smithfield had been a significant win for the region but the “elephant in the room was getting it over the hill”.
“If we’re ever going to get a better corridor or something across the range, it’s going to have to involve the Federal Government because it’s too expensive for the state to do,” he said.
“I think there’s an argument for all of us to say to the Commonwealth that with the opening up of Cape York, the Gulf and Lakelands that the federal funded road should go north of the Smithfield roundabout and the logical place is Mareeba as a start.
“If we can get the commonwealth to make the highway from Smithfield to Mareeba a national highway, then they have no choice but to be at the table and say ‘okay, what do we have to do?’”
Mr Crawford said while the state did not need financial assistance to do the study, it would need federal assistance for the “big capital works commitment” and in dealing with environmental regulations at the federal level.
He said when the time came for a business case to be done on the right corridor, it may be up to politicians to ensure it was successful for funding.
“That’s where the politicians come into it – even though the bureaucrats can say the business case doesn’t stack up, the politicians can say ‘thank you very much but we’re still going to do it’.”
He also believes that the Northern Tablelands to Cairns study done in 2021 had not been able to take into account future economic activity such as the extension of agricultural operations in Lakelands and mining in the Cape.
“If we’re able to use the muscle of the advocacy groups to materialise just what that would look like, I think it changes the game a bit,” Mr Crawford added.
