QMCA has today welcomed media reports that $500 million will be allocated in the Federal Budget for upgrading the M1 between Daisy Hill and Logan Motorway, a bottle neck notorious with Queensland commuters.
However, funds being allocated to any project is a road to nowhere, unless multiple other factors align and enable work to take place. QMCA CEO, Jon Davies, welcomed the announcement, but sounded a note of caution, “It is pleasing to see that the Federal Government are allocating funds to works in Queensland. However, the reality of this announcement is that $500 million will only fund half of the estimated cost with the shortfall to be taken up by the State Government.”
“While it is good to see any commitment of funding, federal funds really must account for a greater proportion of the overall total for a project like this. The M1 is a nationally important piece of infrastructure, it is the main arterial through South East Queensland, and we would like to see the funding split addressed during the renegotiation of the National Partnership on Roads, which expires in June.”
“Given the funding challenges currently facing Queensland, we do not believe that the State Government can afford to match the 50% funding being proposed. As a result, a project to fix a nationally significant piece of infrastructure will simply not happen, and Queensland commuters and businesses will suffer ongoing delays,” said Mr Davies.
QMCA’s 2019 Major Projects Pipeline Report highlighted the challenge of delays between projects that have been announced and work starting. “Here we have a situation where a funding announcement has been made for a project that does not even have a completed business case.”
“We would encourage the Federal Government and Queensland Government to work collaboratively to identify infrastructure needs, develop business cases through Building Queensland and to utilise the Infrastructure Australia processes to turn announcements into funded shovel ready projects,” said Mr Davies.
