Ian Macfarlane responds to Second Range Crossing criticism

THE completed Toowoomba Second Range Crossing will be a road that makes our region proud.

Opening of a western section of the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing are (from left) Groom MP Dr John McVeigh, former Groom MP Ian Macfarlane, TRC Mayor Paul Antonio, LVRC Mayor Tanya Milligan, Wright MP Scott Buchholz, Nexus Infrastructure Consortium chairman John Witheriff and state Transport Minister Mark Bailey, Saturday, December 8, 2018. Picture: Kevin Farmer

THE completed Toowoomba Second Range Crossing will be a road that makes our region proud.

Unfortunately, Peter and Betty Sheridan's (TC, 25/02) incorrect theory about how the investment came about holds little resemblance to the facts.

For the record, and confirmed by the events as they occurred, the Coalition first budgeted $700 million to build the Second Range Crossing in 2007 during the term of John Howard's Government. This came after extensive planning and land acquisition of the corridor for the route.

The Rudd Government reallocated this money in its first budget in 2008, failing to share the vision for the economic benefits of the road.

Nonetheless, the Coalition that I was a member of retained that funding commitment all through Opposition, taking the funding to both the 2010 and 2013 elections.

And so it was that after the Coalition was elected to Government in 2013, $1.285 billion was allocated in our first budget in 2014 to build the Second Range Crossing, with about $321 million chipped in from the State Government.

Work began pretty much straight away, and we can see the results before us, all but completed.

This has been the top priority for our community for decades so I was never going to waver, but it's a tribute also to Tony Abbott and Warren Truss in particular, both of whom were fully committed to the Second Range Crossing all the way through to the first sod being turned.

I look forward to the entire project being completed this year.

IAN MACFARLANE, former Member for Groom

Originally published as Ian Macfarlane responds to Second Range Crossing criticism