As you drive into Rockhampton from the north, you cannot miss the massive silos painted green and emblazoned with the message, “START ROCKY RING ROAD: Keep your promises, 2023“.
The message was painted there in reaction to the Federal Labor Government’s decision in 2022 to push out the funding for the Ring Road to the never, never.
That decision kindled a massive reaction from Central Queenslanders fed up with the substandard roads and infrastructure that successive Labor governments had left us with for decades.
A rally was held, a convoy headed to Canberra and eventually the decision was reversed and the Rocky Ring Road was started last year.
There is still a problem though.
While it is great to see the Rocky Ring Road start, we still do not know if the road will finish.
Last year the Federal Government tipped in an extra $350 million but that was only 50 per cent of the cost blowout on the road.
So far the state government has not put any more money towards the Rocky Ring Road so we are still $350 million short from having a completed road.
Given the lack of funding, as the plan currently stands, we will have a new road that will let us drive from the “Welcome to Rocky Bull“ and up to Pink Lily.
Then you will start driving over the Fitzroy, just to discover that the bridge is only half built.
So, you will careen off the incomplete bridge like the Illinois Nazis in Blues Brothers, only this time landing next to the crocodiles.
It is not like the Queensland Government has been stingy in funding infrastructure cost blowouts.
The Labor State Government has provided extra funding to the Cross River Rail project ($960 million), the Gold Coast Light Rail project ($500 million) and the Coomera Connector ($632 million).
Of course there is one difference between the cost blowouts on these projects and those on the Rocky Ring Road.
The projects that the Queensland Government have funded are all in South East Queensland.
The one project where cost blowouts have held the project up is in Central Queensland.
This double standard is even more galling given the wealth that Central Queensland generates and the billions in royalties that the Queensland Government takes away from this region.
They more than doubled those royalties in recent years but still we can’t get our roads funded the same way they do in Brisbane.
The Rocky Ring road would help all of Queensland, by cutting out 19 traffic lights from the Bruce Highway.
The travel time savings would cut the cost of the food that must travel from north and central Queensland to Brisbane.
The road would help us all locally.
There are 4 schools that are on the Bruce Highway.
This week as kids go back to school, students have to carry their backpacks right next to huge trucks on a national highway.
Parents and children should not be put in this unsafe position.
Major projects like Adani, the Rookwood weir and the Shoalwater Bay military training upgrades have been successfully completed in Central Queensland in recent years.
When we funded the Rocky Ring Road when in Government it was part of a decade long pipeline of projects that would help build a sustainable construction industry in Central Queensland.
Unless we get certainty on the Rocky Ring Road people in construction will have to move away for work.
There just aren’t enough jobs in painting silos to complain about dud, Labor Government decisions to keep them all employed.
