Hundreds sign petition for Barron Bridge fix, new Tablelands to Cairns highway

Hundreds of people have signed a petition demanding the Barron River Bridge be urgently repaired while also calling for a new inland highway from the Tablelands to Cairns.

No funding has been allocated for the building of a new bridge over the Barron River at Kuranda in the 2024/25 state budget. Picture: Kevin Explores

Hundreds of people have signed a petition demanding the Barron River Bridge be urgently repaired while also calling for a new inland highway from the Tablelands to Cairns.

It comes as dozens attend a community meeting in Mareeba on Saturday fronted by Katter’s Australia Party’s Hill MP Shane Knuth and Cook candidate Duane Amos.

Mr Amos said it would take community pressure to drive solutions to both the bridge and a new alternative route between Mareeba and Cairns.

“The problem we have now with this perfect storm is building a new bridge is also a short term option because at the back end of that we have the Kuranda Range,” he said.

“The structural integrity associated with that road, with our typical weather and rainfall in the tropics, is limited ... we know that’s not a long-term viable option.

KAP’s Cook candidate Duane Amos. Picture: Samuel Davis

“We want to make sure that we get through to parliament (the need for) a short term option for now and a long-term medium option that gives us a future because it’s the economics of this area that are impacted.

“Doesn’t matter whether we’re transporting cane or we’re taking avocados or whatever it is, our transport industry needs consistency and viability for us to be able to get our products to and from, to allow our communities to thrive.”

Within one day of being posted almost 600 people had signed the parliamentary petition demanding the Queensland government urgently repair the current bridge to full capacity and “immediately progress to fast track a new inland highway from the Tablelands to Cairns”.

The KAP have long pushed for the ‘Bridle Track’ to be developed as an alternative route between Mareeba and Cairns.

Saturday’s meeting comes after the Cairns Post revealed just $15m had been allocated towards pre-construction work on the bridge in Tuesday’s state budget.

An aerial view of the damaged Kuranda Range Rd, which has been hit by regular closures. Picture: TMR

John Burns, owner and operator of Scope Town Planning in Mareeba, said the region and community had been neglected by southeast decision makers.

“This isn’t just about the range (and the bridge) but this is a wider issue and we’ve seen the waste the government has been throwing here, ticking the box (to say) ‘we’re doing regional road infrastructure investment, look at us’,” he said.

“And what do we get? We get the highway widened by a metre but they don’t fix the potholes in it.

“This is highly politically motivated, we’ve been ignored for years up here.

“We know what needs to be done, it’s high time they listen to the locals who live here and use the infrastructure.”

Gullara McInnes, a staffer in the Kennedy electorate office and organiser of Saturday’s meeting said she had invited local representatives of all stripes including Cook MP Cynthia Lui, Barron River MP Craig Crawford, Cairns MP Michael Healy as well as Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch and LNP’s Cook candidate David Kempton, but none attended.

“I organised this not as an employee of Bob’s (Katter) office but as a member of the community that drives from Mareeba to Cairns for university studies,” she said.

“Politics should have been pushed aside for this one meeting to bring us all together and these responses have shown they will not listen to us.

“It’s down to the power of the people to demand action.”

Mr Crawford told the Cairns Post on Tuesday the $15m spend would finish the business case on preconstruction work on the bridge.

“We can’t have $250m or more hanging on it because we don’t know what we are building yet,” he said.

“The next step is a detailed design because the capital works is hundreds of millions of dollars”.

The e-petition can be found on the Queensland Parliament website.

Originally published as Hundreds sign petition for Barron Bridge fix, new Tablelands to Cairns highway