Are more road trains worse for North Queensland towns?

A trucker and a disendorsed political candidate hits back at his former leader’s concerns that railway inadequacies were leading to more road trains.

Truck driver Clynton Hawks believes 80 additional trucks on the road would not make a difference to safety, and would be good for local economies. Picture: Supplied

A truck driver who ran for politics has hit back at the statements of his former leader Robbie Katter, who had posted concerns about increased road trains burdening a major highway.

Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter has long-held views that costs to use the Mount Isa to Townsville corridor were exorbitant and forcing companies to push its produce onto the Flinders Highway instead.

“If Queensland Rail do not move to incentivising rail use, rather than driving bulk freight onto the roads we share with families and travellers, more than 80 extra triple road trains will be on the highway each day,” Mr Katter said.

“Put simply, this threatens lives.

“Forget the misguided woke agenda of reducing carbon emissions, or less road maintenance, keeping freight on rail will undoubtedly save lives.”

Mr Katter also spoke further on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s intention for the government to fund $7.2bn in Bruce Highway infrastructure, saying “this is something I am very excited about” if there was a renewed national focus.

“Separate to the Bruce, however, the Great Northern Railway remains an underutilized asset hamstrung by uncompetitive policy and price settings.

“Essentially, the line is treated like a cash cow by the Queensland Government.”

But Clynton Hawks, a truck driver disendorsed by Katters Australian Party in the months leading up to last year’s state election, claims these views were not valuing road trains or their drivers which he believed provided a boost to the economies of small North Queensland communities.

Products such as supermarket goods, crops, and car parts and tyres were delivered by road to these communities such as Cloncurry, Julia Creek and Richmond anyway, and Mr Hawks did not believe an additional 80 road trains a day within the stretch of 900 km would make a difference to the highway’s safety or wear and tear.

“Anything you can imagine that you’re going to buy at a shop, it comes by a truck, more or less, very rarely, it’ll go on that rail,” Mr Hawks said.

An Aurizon train travels near Hughenden in North Queensland. Picture: Scott Radford-Chisholm

He also believed an additional 80 road trains on the road would be a good thing for these communities, which could use the boost to the economies through meals and fuel.

“To say 80 more road train trains a day heading out that way would cause risk to lives on that road is basically an affront, an attack, on truck drivers that professional truck drivers that use that road every day because that’s their workplace, that’s their office,” Mr Hawks said.

“We’re some of the safest drivers in the country.”

Truck driver Clynton Hawks said his views were not motivated by “past dealings” with KAP.

“We spend long hours, 12 hours a day driving that road, all of us know it like the back of our hands.”

Mr Hawks was a former Thuringowa candidate who was disendorsed by the KAP six months before the state election last October and Mr Katter said this was because “there’s development needed for him.”

But the truck driver said his criticism was not motivated by “past dealings”, and that he had in the past criticised politicians from all sides of the politician spectrum.

Clynton Hawks believes communities would benefit from an additional 80 meals on the road each day, such as Hughenden’s Great Western Hotel. Picture: Scott Radford-Chisholm

“If you’re going to call out an industry, at least have your facts right before you start saying the wrong things, because there’s a lot of truck drivers who are pissed off along that stretch of highway who know the politician well that are pretty disappointed in what he said,” Mr Hawks said.

Originally published as Are more road trains worse for North Queensland towns?