News Corp safety campaign drives new funding for Bruce Highway upgrade

A News Corp safety campaign to help save lives on Queensland’s notorious Bruce Highway has resulted in a federal government pledge to allocate $467m to upgrade the critical route.

The Help Our Highway campaign called for an urgent response to the safety concerns plaguing one of the state’s most heavily-used roadways. Picture: Brendan Radke

A News Corp safety campaign to help save lives on Queensland’s notorious Bruce Highway has resulted in a federal government pledge to allocate $467m to upgrade the critical transport route.

The Help Our Highway campaign, which launched across News Corp’s Queensland digital and print mastheads in April, called for an urgent response to the safety concerns plaguing one of the state’s most heavily-used roadways.

Chris Jones, editor of the Courier Mail (owned by News Corp, publisher of The Australian), said the campaign was devised last year, and all of the state’s News Corp-owned mastheads were involved.

“The genesis of this campaign was a meeting last year of all our Queensland editors, where we all agreed the Bruce Highway was the one demand that united our readers,” Jones said.

“This campaign has therefore been run enthusiastically across all our mastheads in Queensland, from The Courier-Mail to the Cairns Post – and it’s been embraced by readers in every town and city.

“A love for the Maroons and frustration with the Bruce Highway are two things felt passionately by most Queenslanders – and so fighting for a better road is something we knew our readers would get behind.

“The Bruce Highway is Queensland’s Main Street – but 90 per cent of it is rated three stars or less out of five for safety. This is unacceptable, and so demanding a better road is a no-brainer.

A Cairns Post front page in April that was part of the road improvement campaign.

NRMA was a key collaborator in the campaign.

NRMA chief marketing officer Michelle Klein said the campaign was an opportunity to “do something to help Queensland in multiple ways.”

“The Bruce Highway is the lifeline connecting so many people, businesses, communities and towns,’’ Ms Klein said.

“We wanted to work with News Corp to increase awareness and improve the highway to help Queenslanders create safer driving, save lives and ultimately demonstrate how we help.”

Jones said plans to continue the improvement of the Sunshine State’s transport spine was an issue both sides of politics needed to address in the lead up to the federal election.

“The federal government’s increased funding commitment is a great first step, but this fight is not over until Queensland gets what it deserves: a national highway as safe as those in the southern states,’’ he said.

“A commitment to delivering this must be made by both sides of federal politics ahead of the election.”

News Corp’s managing director, national sales, Louise Barrett said the campaign was still in phase one of long-term strategy.

“This took 12 months to get off the ground and we are not looking at this as a short term campaign. The Bruce Highway is not a problem that is going to be fixed in a year, this is a five to seven year campaign.”

The news comes as another News Corp advocacy campaign About Bloody Time to tackle endometriosis also received government endorsement with a $49.1 million budget allocation.