The ailing Barron River bridge at Kuranda has passed its use by date. Bob Katter says Queensland Labor should build a new access road to Cairns and leave the bridge for tourist traffic
THE Queensland State Government is leading Far Northerners down a dangerous, wasteful path with its spending and road design ideas in the wider Cairns region, Katter’s Australian Party MPs Bob Katter and Shane Knuth say.
Reviewing the more than $10m in taxpayer funding spent to date just to “study” the Barron River Bridge at Kuranda, the Federal MP questioned the State Government’s decision-making ability.
He said if the bridge was safe to use, as per engineer reports, it should be left as is and feature as a “beautiful tourist drive.”
“What use is spending further millions on a new bridge, when the rest of this winding road will continue creating havoc and bottlenecks,” Mr Katter said.
“You’ve got tens of thousands of people heading into Smithfield from the Tablelands, and from the north, another few thousand, all meeting at one intersection.
“Meanwhile, we’ve got millions of dollars in minerals west of Mareeba, which we can’t get to the port, and no matter how much you spend on this bridge or the Kuranda Range Road, it will never be a heavy-freight route. Build the Bridle Track Tunnel – open up the mineral fields, open up west of the dividing range for housing.”
Mr Katter also slammed another State Government road project – the $30m cassowary bridge north of Tully as “lunacy” gone wild in government spending.
“Ask the people of Tully, the wettest town requiring the most road works, how they would like that $30m to be spent.”
Member for Hill Shane Knuth said the State Government had missed a golden opportunity to construct an inland highway as part of a nation building project.
“The time is right to construct a new inland highway from Mareeba to Cairns,” Mr Knuth said.
“There is huge frustration with the Kuranda Range in regard to it being closed, sometimes two to three times a week, because of traffic accidents.
“A real opportunity now exists to build this inland highway and open up this region, but all the State Government has done is waste millions of dollars in cameras and the frustrations will continue for generations.
“The massive amount of feedback we have received reveals people would prefer an inland highway and for the Kuranda Range to be left as a tourist route.”
Mr Knuth said out of the potential of hundreds of millions of dollars that will be put into this, it could have been put towards a direct route which could save motorists up to 40 minutes, one way.
If the pristine forest can be chopped down for some temporary wind turbines to generate occasional power for the zero emission agenda, why can’t some forest be chopped down for a streamlined roadway which will be safer, reduce energy consumption and serve the pubic 24/7 forever. Which will lead to better results for the zero emissions agenda?
Hi Neville we hear it has been submitted several times but the area of entry onto the Captain Cook hwy highway is now World Heritage listed. It is just a narrow strip along the edge of the highway so no further earthworks can be done. Another great Labor initiative. Ed
CAIRNS TABLELANDS CAPE CONNECTOR
Are We Over Estimating the Development Restrictions of World Heritage Listing?
Notwithstanding the standard reluctance of the Brisbane State Government to commit to major project spending outside SEQ the much overdue upgrade of the transport corridor between Cairns and Mareeba through to the Cape, even the advancement of a concept design that may meet the requirement of a cost benefit analyst, are compromised by the perceived need to meet some unquantifiable conditions imposed with the transiting of a World Heritage area.
Below is the link to the application for Australia’s Wet Topics World Heritage Listing. The document is 112pages but the text of application contained on pages 5-35. the bulk of the document is listing of reference documents and flora and fauna photos. In the text there are notable statements on geology, flora, fauna and human impact. Unfortunately, the application does not include maps but Appendix 1 Boundary Description some 17pages of text identifying the included areas. The application was sign by then Minister of the Environment, Senator Graeme Richardson.
While it may or not be of interest it is probably worth filing away
https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/afd62f21-3393-48e8-8b99-999dbc05c9a1/files/1987-wet-tropics-world-heritage-nomination.pdf
The perception that the World Heritage listing imposes such restrictions that would necessitate the prohibitive costly design and construction to enable vehicle transiting of the Kuranda Range appears to have been elevated to ‘mythical’ status. As a consequence, upgrade proposals and concepts have escalated from conforming to ‘world best practices’ to doomed to be shelved dust gathering concepts that tout the inclusion of never to be funded tunnels.
https://whc.unesco.org/archive/opguide13-en.pdf, The Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention Annex 11, provides for modifications to World Heritage areas. Additionally. The Commonwealth Government acknowledges that its obligation to protect and conserve World Heritage properties, but there is no impediment to existing land uses unless they threaten any of the outstanding universal values of the property.
https://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/about/world-heritage provides general information in regards Australia World Heritage protection. There are provisions enabling the Commonwealth to submit notification of development proposals that may affect the outstanding universal value of a World Heritage property to the World Heritage Committee.
The World Heritage Convention does not impose a blanket ban on development, rather it requires the Commonwealth to notify the World Heritage Committee of any proposed development and submit necessary request for a modification to world heritage properties, along with the mandatory supporting documents. Presumably, what is at risk is the loss of UN World Heritage recognition and its associated worth.
The heritage area covers nearly 9,000km2, extends from Cooktown to Townsville with a boundary of more than 3,000km. The risk of losing the current recognition as a result of constructing one or even several significant roads to better connect communities that existed long before the Commonwealth gazetted the finalized boundary of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area would be remote. Additionally, likely routes in general are not in areas of pristine rain forest wildness.
While I expect that local and national environmentalists will rage against any development, the primary task will to confront the Commonwealth Government and bureaucracy in regards to their obligation to seek approval for modification of the listing from World Heritage Committee. In the event they do not pursue the modification to then it should made clear any additional design, construction and ongoing maintenance cost requires will not adversely impact any cost benefit analyst and all expenditure associated with meeting compliance with the current listing will be borne by the Commonwealth.
Time for North Queensland to secede.
What of Quaid Road ?
Well, unfortunately we are not in Brisbane if the Gold Coast… if we were, this would have been done already.