The inland freight route is meant to keep Queensland open for business during disasters, but five years after the $1 billion “second Bruce” upgrade was announced no real work has been done.
The 1,186-kilometre route from Charters Towers in the north to Mungindi on the New South Wales border was promised as part of Labor’s Real Bruce Plan during the 2020 state election.
At the time then-main roads minister Mark Bailey said the upgrade would “cut travel times and reduce industry costs on moving goods” to key markets like Sydney and Melbourne.
But some Queenslanders were sceptical.
Labor won that election but lost the next one, and new Main Roads Minister Brent Mickelberg has revealed “no meaningful progress” has been made on the inland route.
“There’s a billion dollars allocated for this program but there’s been no detailed plan done as to the expenditure of that funding,”
Mr Mickelberg said.
“We’re working on pushing forward the details of how we can roll out the work to basically spend the remaining funding.”
In the wake of extensive flooding in the north Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has committed to completing a third alternative route, but Mr Mickelberg said it was time to get the original project moving.
Bitumen worse than dirt
The inland freight route comprises four roads — the Gregory Developmental Road, Gregory Highway, Dawson Highway, and Carnarvon Highway.
Part of the Ollera Creek Bridge, between Townsville and Ingham, was washed away during floods. (ABC News)
The full length of the road is notorious to truck drivers like Michael Austen who runs a freight company out of Clermont in central Queensland.
“It’s not fun. The best way to explain is come for a drive [on it],”
Mr Austen said.
As well as serving the local market the company uses the route to take freight into Sydney and Melbourne, more than 1,500 kilometres away.
Mr Austen said there were long stretches of the highway that forced drivers to slow down to 60 kilometres per hour for safety.
“Potholes, narrow, high walls. [There’s] not enough rest stops for truck drivers either,” Mr Austen said.
“If you’ve got a pullover bay it’s right on the highway. Imagine trying to sleep right beside the road with trucks screaming past you all night.”
The inland freight route runs from Charters Towers in north Queensland to the New South Wales border town Mungindi. (Supplied: Infrastructure Australia )
Mr Austen said the entire length of the route needed work and some sections were worse than dirt roads.
“Honestly, the dirt around Clermont is a lot better than all the bitumen the whole rest of the way,”
he said.
“I understand that it is a big project, but if you don’t do anything to it you’re going to fall behind.”
As north Queensland’s flooding disaster unfolded in early February it took the loss of just two bridges to grind freight to a halt.
First the Ollera Creek bridge between Townsville and Ingham on the Bruce Highway collapsed, cutting the coastal route.
Then the Macrossan Bridge on the Flinders Highway near Charters Towers was engulfed by the swollen Burdekin River, cutting off the coast from the inland route.
When the Gregory Developmental Road also closed so did any hope of moving produce south.
Joe Moro grows mangoes near Mareeba in Far North Queensland and relies on the Bruce Highway to get his fruit to southern markets.
But when it gets cut he uses the inland freight route, which he said should be considered a Road of Strategic Importance and extended further north.
“It basically [would] put a backbone to Queensland so that when these things happen you can move around it,”
he said.
This time he was lucky, having finished picking the crop before the rain started, but he worried about what the next severe storm would bring.
Mango grower Joe Moro wants the inland freight route extended further north. (ABC News: Brendan Mounter)
“The Bruce Highway needs to be made safe for people to drive on but I don’t believe that, in reality, it will ever be flood proof,” he said.
“There’s always going to be an event that stops traffic and causes damage.”
Political pothole
When Queensland Labor made its $200 million election commitment it immediately sought $800 million from the federal government under existing 80:20 joint funding arrangements.
In its first federal budget after the state election on May 11, 2021 — five days after then-prime minister Scott Morrison was secretly sworn into the treasury portfolio — the coalition promised the first half of its share.
The second $400m was promised in the March 2022 budget, two months before the coalition lost the election and Anthony Albanese became prime minister.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Infrastructure Minister Cathering King said the federal government provided $720 million for construction funding for the inland freight route in the 2024-25 budget.
Queensland Transport and Main Roads Minister Brent Mickelberg said there’s been no detailed plan done. (ABC News)
“We are working with our delivery partners, the Queensland government, which began early works in last year,” the spokesperson said.
The $107 million early works package facilitated bridge, culvert, and widening work around Belyando and Injune in preparation for upgrades to the inland route.
The $107 million early works package funded preparation work ahead of upgrades to the inland freight route. (Supplied: Queensland government)
But Mr Mickelberg said most of the work done so far was planning and design despite all of the federal money needing to be spent by 2028.
“Hopefully meaningful work will commence this calendar year,”
Mr Moro said.
“The plan is to have that work finished by the end of June 2028.”
He said he had discussed extending the inland freight route further north with the prime minister but sections near Rolleston, between Charters Towers and the Belyando Crossing through Clermont, were the top priorities.
“I think realistically we need to be looking at extending this route through to Cairns,” he said.
“We just need to get on with the job of building the upgrades that are required.”
