No Cooroy or Curra in Albanese’s Highway re-announcement
3rd September, 2009
Federal Member for Wide Bay and Leader of The Nationals, Warren Truss, said today’s visit to Gympie by Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese, demonstrated that the Rudd Labor Government has no plans to complete the four laning of the Bruce Highway from Cooroy to Curra or build the Gympie bypass.“Today’s visit by Anthony Albanese shows that he is only interested in helping Anna Bligh, by subsidizing the cost of the proposed Traveston Crossing dam,” Mr Truss said.
“The work that Mr Albanese declared started today, under the headline of $613 MILLION BRUCE HIGHWAY COOROY TO CURRA UPGRADE BEGINS, is south of Gympie and will not go near Curra. This funding will only build the road around the State Government’s dam.
“It is not the community’s preferred route, who wanted the upgrade to closely follow the existing route, and the community certainly does not want the dam,” Mr Truss said.
In spite of Mr Albanese’s re-announcement today, 45 dangerous kilometres of the Cooroy to Curra section will go untouched.
Mr Albanese acknowledged that Bruce Highway has crash rates 40 per cent higher than other major roads on the national highway network, yet the Rudd Government does not have any plans to complete the Cooroy to Curra projects.
“If Mr Albanese and the Rudd Government were serious about making the Highway safer as he said today, he would have set a completion date for the full upgrade and the bypass as the former Coalition Government did,” Mr Truss said.
