Editorial: Who is committed to finishing the Bruce Highway

To earn an A+, the government must deliver a locked-in, longer-term commitment to upgrade the highway, writes the editor.

It is, of course, good to see federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ promise that his third budget next week will be one “for Queenslanders written by a Queenslander” is going to be backed with more cash to improve the Bruce Highway.

As we exclusively reveal today, there has been an additional $467m allocated in next week’s federal budget for the Bruce – a direct result of the Help our Highway campaign by The Courier-Mail and our regional mastheads.

As we have said in this column a few times in the past month, there are two things that unite pretty well every Queenslander: their love of our State of Origin rugby league team, and stories of woe from their travels along the Bruce Highway.

The road is the major artery that links most of our state’s people. It is our connective tissue – our shared Main Street.

As Treasurer Chalmers himself says: “The Bruce is a crucial part of Queensland, and that makes it a crucial part of our national economy.”

But the sad reality is the highway is not fit for purpose.

As the Help our Highway series has revealed, a shocking 90 per cent of the Bruce Highway is assessed as being three stars or less out of five in terms of safety. Almost half of it is rated just two stars.

This is in stark contrast to the situation in NSW, where the Pacific Highway from the Queensland border to Hexham near Newcastle was “finished” in 2021 after 15 years of work to make it a four-lane divided road. That commitment to “finish” the highway has led to a 70 per cent reduction in fatal crashes.

But in Queensland, doing the same is seen as something that is perennially in the too-hard basket. No government has yet pledged to upgrade the 1679km highway that links Brisbane with Cairns to the dual carriageway that safety requires.

The closest was a promise to do so over 15 years at a cost of $33bn made by the state opposition at the 2020 election that it ended up losing. This should change. A long-term commitment to “finish” the Bruce is critical.

The Prime Minister showed at least some acceptance of this truth earlier this week when he said the Bruce Highway should be just as good as the Pacific Highway.

And so the Treasurer’s welcome commitment of half a billion extra dollars for the highway is still just a pass mark.

To earn an A+, the government must deliver a locked-in, longer-term commitment to upgrade the highway – in the same way the road that links Sydney with the coastal communities along the NSW north coast benefited from.

Yes, the Bruce Highway is much longer than the Pacific Highway. But why should distance matter?

Such a commitment would help Labor politically, too.

The Albanese government will need Queensland voters to shift to Labor federally if it is to win a majority at the election that is due early next year.

A proper long-term commitment to viewing the Bruce Highway as a single road that needs to be fixed – rather than viewing it as roadworks in sections – certainly would not hurt its chances in regional seats.

The Courier-Mail’s commitment to advocating for this state is built into our DNA. We proudly fight for better outcomes – and have been doing so for every one of the 178 years we have been publishing.

In this spirit, we will not rest on this issue until we have won a firm commitment from government to finally finish the Bruce Highway.

REEL IN SOCIAL MEDIA GIANTS

The genie is well and truly out of the bottle when it comes to social media giants and the potential harm their platforms can cause our society.

After months of news reports culminating in the failure of X (formerly Twitter) to remove violent video of the Sydney terror stabbing, people are waking up to the fact that tech giants can be dangerous in many ways including through the spread of misinformation and potentially violent, harmful and child abuse material.

It is a good thing then that the federal government is set to put the social media companies under the microscope in a wide-ranging review.

A Joint Parliamentary Select Committee will examine the impact and influence of social media, including its ability to spread misinformation. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is right to say that social media companies needed to be more transparent and held to higher degrees of account.

But the biggest challenge will be getting the tech giants to actually change their ways, because based on past performance they tend to see themselves as more important than any single country.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here