Toowoomba business, political leaders outline wishlists for Queensland state budget

The Queensland state budget will be handed down this week. Here’s what our local leaders would like to see from it.

Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Rohl and Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio.

Major road, housing and tourism infrastructure investment is at the top of the wishlists for Toowoomba’s community leaders ahead of the state budget this week.

Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Rohl and Mayor Paul Antonio both identified what they’d like to see in the document, which will be handed down by Treasurer Cameron Dick in parliament today.

Along with standard requests like tax and red tape reform for small businesses, Mr Rohl said the State Government needed to invest in both housing and infrastructure projects as a priority.

“Toowoomba chamber would like the Queensland Government to invest in infrastructure projects including water security, public transport, tourism facilities like a conference centre, sports stadium and Quarry Gardens now,” he said.

“Members are screaming for help to resolve the crisis of finding a place to live.

“Our members have identified a lack of land availability and a limited future residential pipeline has resulted in growing numbers of vulnerable people becoming homeless, made the city less affordable and resulted in workers choosing other locations to live.

“We need evidence in the budget that the State Government will take the lead on this matter.”

Mr Rohl said members also wanted to see investment in water security.

Mr Antonio instead focused on a second road to Highfields as well as further flood mitigation for the Toowoomba CBD.

“In this case, we’re looking at continuing the flood mitigation here,” he told reporters on Friday.

“We have an issue at Crows Nest with the sewage system there — it’s historical and was passed down to us and we would like to fix that up.

“There are other things like the second connector road to Highfields; we’ve had a few promises in the past, but it’s an essential road.

“If you drive from Highfields to Toowoomba at peak hour, you’ll find why we need this.”