Grey nomads excited by the Federal Government’s much vaunted plans to rejuvenate northern Australia with massive infrastructure improvements will be disappointed to learn that their dreams of a bitumen-hugging, pot hole-free Outback adventure may still be a long. long way off.
As it gets down to the nitty gritty, it appears that the money being talked about is a drop in the proverbial bucket. Critics say the $100 million pledge for beef roads in the north will deliver critical – but minor – repairs on key routes. The Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association (NTCA) has previously said more than $1 billion is needed to upgrade beef roads — just in the Northern Territory.
Close to 80% of the NT’s 22,000 kilometres of roads are unsealed and largely impassable for months of the year.
The NTCA has advocates divvying up the funds between Queensland, the NT and Western Australia, with top-priority roads being identified as the Buntine Highway in the Victoria River District, the Barkly and Tablelands Highway, and the Plenty Highway in the Alice Springs region.
It says $10m on each of these would not go far when working in isolated areas, and would maybe build a few bridges on the Buntine, continue the sealing of the Plenty, and shore up some of the black-soil sections on the Barkly.
While it may not be as much as many as hoped, the strong feeling is that the sooner the money is allocated and work starts, the better.
The Government had not committed to a deadline on when the roads would be finally selected and the money start to flow but it is currently looking like middle-to-late 2016.
“Let’s start rolling out the money and, in 12 months, come together, measure the progress and continue to build on a model to attract further funding for northern beef roads,” NCTA chief executive officer, Tracey Hayes, told the Land newspaper. “We don’t want that blueprint to sit on the shelf once that $100m is allocated, when more than a billion dollars is needed to fully optimise transport infrastructure in the north.”
Normal federal government of any party, if its not a big vote catcher or around
Syd,Melb or Canberra it’s not important.
I have travelled the outback for more than 30 years and would welcome an upgrading of these roads. The present state of the roads restricts tourism. It s essential that we populate the north and tourism would go a long way towards keeping these outback towns alive. A lot of people are looking for new destinations but the bad roads put them off. Far too much money is siphoned off to spend on the capital cities, a bit of fairness would be nice. By the way I live in Brisbane.
The West Australia Gov’t doesn’t think it is important enough to make the Bussell Highway from Capel to Busselton dual carriageway. It is a distance of approx. 20 km’s. The Southwest is the busiest part of Western Australia in the summer months and the traffic North bound after a LWE is horrendous. They don’t give a damn.