Peter Beattie apparently last met Brian Burke in 1983, according to The Australian, for what it’s worth. But he’s been having the time of his life in state parliament making hay with a scandal that’s potentially much more damaging to Howard than Burkegate is to Rudd – the Federal Police’s investigation into alleged misuses of printing allowances.
The hapless Queensland Liberal leader, Dr Bruce Flegg, was the target of Beattie’s scorn in question time yesterday. Beattie would have enjoyed challenging Flegg to verify that no funds had been diverted to the state campaign, knowing full well that the good doctor and his party headquarters are barely on speaking terms.
But there are more federal woes for Flegg, and potentially an own goal for John Howard.
Infrastructure issues are often sheeted home to state governments. But there’s no denying that the federal government has a role in areas such as road funding – just ask the Nationals. One of South East Queensland’s sore spots for many a year has been the appallingly gridlocked and dangerous Ipswich Motorway.
The state Liberals, and Liberal Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman, have spoken as one with Beattie and federal Labor, including one Kevin Rudd MP, in demanding the motorway be widened. But Howard, in a decision that state Transport Minister Paul Lucas described as “crazed�, has announced instead that a new bypass will be built.
This raises the spectre of the earmarked and feared Western bypass one day coming to fruition. Such a road would pass through the semi-rural and upscale acreages of Moggill, Bellbowrie and Pullenvale, inconveniently represented in state parliament by Bruce Flegg. Many residents were horrified some years ago to find local government amalgamations placed them under the Ipswich City Council, and Blair MP Cameron Thompson and Ryan MP Michael Johnson both vehemently opposed suggestions that a bridge be constructed over the Brisbane River linking Moggill to Ipswich in 2005.
Johnson may have given the game away when he denied the reason many cynics believe locals have for opposing such a road:
I know there is a lot of comment about people coming over who are not desirable.
Now Howard has united the state Liberal party, the Labor government and the Liberal lord mayor in opposition to his Goodna Bypass proposal. A vote winning announcement has the potential to turn into a vote loser. It’s hard not to see this example of a tin political ear being a consequence of the indifference Howard displays towards his hapless state colleagues. But he might like to contemplate that building this particular bridge too far might contribute to leaving Campbell Newman as the senior Liberal politician in Australia after the federal election, assuming Iemma hangs on.
…Campbell Newman as the senior Liberal politician in Australia after the federal election…
Fucking glorious.
Props to Lefty E for first pointing this out here at LP! Of course, Campbell’s up for re-election in March 08, so he may or may not enjoy the honour for long if Howard loses.
And he doesnt even control the Council!
Oh sweet, sweet day. Bringity bring it.
They should get a decent candidate for the Greens in Dutton Park, Lefty E
Then we’d have an interesting council…
Now that would be a travel allowance rort story!
Heh.
I’ve got a mate who’s got a spare room in Paradise St!
One of my fave streets, what a view….
Might get the campaign flying with a leaflet. Know any good printers?
Another straw for Howard’s back. Or should that be ‘rod’?
According to a map in today’s Courier Howard’s bypass will actually cross the river four times. After ploughing through Moggill, Bellbowrie and Pullenvale it will then carve a track through Kenmore, The Gap and Samford. This is the old Route 20 but a bit further out.
A side-effect will be that Ipswich-Brisbane traffic will take the bypass and branch off at The Gap and head in through Ashgrove, upsetting this citizen among others.
The truth is that both are needed. Ipswich Road is dangerous and people will still be dying after Howard’s bypass.
The whole SEQ is close to grid-lock while up North they keep bleating about the road disappearing under water every time it rains.
Whatever Howard does it will get him into trouble because he has no rationale for doing anything. So his attempts at vote-buying become exposed for what they are.
It’s incredible, Brian, though, that he hasn’t bothered to find out that the western suburbs bits will plow through Liberal federal seats.
Moggill?! Kenmore! He’s messing with blue heartland there.
Cripes, If they lose that, its “hello Campbell, we need a senior liberal to comment…”
Only if you assume it’s not deliberate. What are Thompson’s and Johnson’s factional or personal allegiances?
Yes, I really do think they hate each other that much.
They should get a decent candidate for the Greens in Dutton Park
Lot of rusted on ALP support. BCC 2004 election resultshere, page 66 – big pdf file.
Greens only beat Libs into second place in 5 booths out of 16 in Dutton Park. Greens would need to, say, strip 1000 votes of the ALP to beat the Libs into second, and would then need another 1000-odd Lib preferences – that is, one in five – to be in a position to just win.
You’d need a pretty big name to pull something like that off.
The bit about the Printgate scandal I love is that the Libs seem to have got so carried away with workchoices that they have given contracts to phantom staff. Who tipped off these people that they were about to be raided should be fun to hear when Federal Parliament resumes.
No mention of Nuttall I see. Has everybody forgotten about him.
He’s not taxpayer funded anymore – these ones are.
Brian: is there a map on-line? I’ve seen maps of the proposed Goodna bypass, but have never seen one that makes a right-turn at Kenmore to cover The Gap and Samford.
I can’t even understand how the Western Bypass is feasible. The whole terrain west of Mt. Coot-Tha is pretty hilly or mountainous. West of Enoggera Dam is a protected catchment area. Tunnels could be built under the worst part, but that would blow the budget.
The worst thing is psychological. I’ve grown up in The Gap, near door to Brisbane Forest Park. It’s always been a nice feeling to have near-wilderness just a few minutes down the road. The Bypass mars it for me, and I suspect for many others in the region.
Well done, John Howard. It looks like you’re about to turn blue-chip Ryan into a Labor seat, for only the second time in its history.
See if this map works. It’s the http://www.mainroads.qld.gov.au/MRWEB/Prod/Content.nsf/fbadb90201547b374a2569e700071c81/00fe3e7b62a792664a2571fb00091f65/$FILE/Alternate Nothern Corridor zone of interest map.pdf one that Howard likes.
Map is caught in spamulator I’d say
Try this more general link.
“Greens only beat Libs into second place in 5 booths out of 16 in Dutton Park.”
With what was, frankly, a pretty crap campaign with such highlights as the big leaflet drop going out 5 days *after* the election.
I’m less concerned about the name of the candidate than I am about the on-ground campaign
d
Down and out… I must confess I’m a bit confused about what is going on. But I understand the western bypass extension is planned for Dillon Road, the unpaved back road that connects The Gap and Kenmore behind Mt Coot-tha. It would be easy buillding a road there. But the Kenmore end is not far from central Kenmore itself, Kenmore Hills rather than Brookfield.
I’ll see what I can find out tonight.
Moggill Road coming out of Kenmore is chockers, of course. Part of the problem is that partial solutions at this stage merely shift the pressure points somewhere else.
So is Michael Harbison, Lord Mayor of Adelaide, still a Liberal member? He’d be next on the hierarchy if Can-do loses the election in March
Given that Labor probably have to get at least one of the seats in the 6-8% range in Qld to win the election, it’s awfully convenient of Laming to engineer a scandal in one.
I know “the vibe” is not a very sophisticated prediction tool, but the way everything seems to be going wrong for the libs, in just the right places at just the right time really does give the impression of a government starting to spiral…
I’m not trying to be picky, but wasn’t it only the area of the old Moreton Shire between Ipswich and Brisbane that found itself part of Ipswich City Council? In particular, Chuwar, Karalee, Karana Downs and Mt Crosby and areas up to the north-west (eg Lake Manchester, Kholo) ?
All of those areas except Karalee were transferred to the Brisbane City Council a couple of years ago.
Yes, but I didn’t say “all residents”.
Ok.
I lived in Karana Downs from ‘77 to ‘83 and have vague memories about a then-talked about western bypass west of Kenmore.
About what the Lib MPs said, on the routes on this map, you needn’t put any off and on ramps on the north side of the Brisbane river – that’d keep the travellers on the south side!
Interesting how the Moggill ferry seems to be an effective supply-stopper in the Brisbane-Ipswich routes. I never understood why the ferry wasn’t replaced with a bridge, but maybe the real reasons are clear.
A comment disappeared (into the spaminator)!
I’ve never understood why many Brisbane residents are against more bridges being built over the river. A lot of the opposition has seemed to me to be selfish and NIMBY.
I’d be happy for people to explain the general reasons behind this opposition.
Fair call, but that would need either more money or more volunteers, and a desire by the Party at large to focus on Dutton Park instead of the mayoralty.
All three of those would probably be enhanced by a high-profile candidate.
Is this anywhere near the Federal seat of Ryan, which Labor won after a byelection in 2001 and is now held by the colourful (as we say here in NSW) Michael Johnson? What’s the ALP candidate for Ryan like, smart, hardworking? Does said candidate have a position on this, or just lying doggo hoping the Libs will cop it?
Given that the Feds are due to face the polls before the Qld state pollies, this could be big. Queensland posters, please examine ramifications of this for Federal seats in metro Brissy.
Ryan is exactly the area included in Howard’s plan.
Mark, as someone who was doing some work as a political reporter in 1995, this proposal feels eerily like Goss’s Koala road. Like Howard, Goss argued that ‘this route is the best possible’, we need this road, yadda, yadda. And the punters took to his government with them there baseball bats, costing him at least four seats between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. It also strikes me as having a hint of desperation about it – Rudd is from Q’ld, Labor need to do well in Q’ld … I know, Tony (Nuttt) quick, where can I spend a few billion dollars in Q’ld to get come good coverage up there. Oh, and can you find my Akubra for me.
It’s a tiny bit of Ryan, both geographically and in terms of numbers of voters.
From little things big things grow according to Kev Carmody
They certainly do.
Wayne, I’m inclined to agree. Perhaps Howard thinks he can afford to alienate voters in Ryan to help defend Blair and Moreton. But it could be a significant own goal. The other story here is that Howard’s contempt for his state troops means that decisions like this are taken with no real sense of the impact on the ground.
Not all of Ryan is blue. Chateau VVB, for example. And the people on our eastern boundary. And those on our western, now I come to think of it. And the bloke down the street who lost his job as a compositor when computers came in, and hasn’t forgiven anybody….
I’d be surprised if some kind of western bypass doesn’t appear in the next few decades – either west of Kenmore or west of Mt Crosby somehow.
I thought earlier this evening, that, everything else being equal, if you had a choice of a single upgraded road or two roads, you’d want a single upgraded road, as you couldn’t know what the crowding on each of the two roads would be before you got onto them – you would have to make a decision about getting onto one (probably without much information) and you woudn’t be able to change to the other road once you’re on one.
It sounds as if two roads might be far less efficient than a single widened road, unless people chose each of the two roads at random. Of course, this might not happen in reality, but it seems plausible.
From the linked-to article:
The objection about the road system in the Moggill/Pullenvale area not being up to the task may well be accurate. Moggill Rd would probably take a lot of money to upgrade it to the necessary standards, and the area is quite hilly – there’d probably have to be a lot on Moggill Rd to make it safe for much-increased traffic.
All roads in Brisbane are inadequate.
If I was making pro-bypass propaganda, I would say “Why should Moggill residents not have to put up with what the rest of us do?”
Down and Out Of Sà i Gòn, the western bypass through to The Gap would pass just east of Enoggera Dam. From there the road would need to get through to Keperra/Ferny Grove. If you went via Settlement Road it would take you pretty much through Hilder Road Primary School. That would make a complete mess of The Gap.
The obvious alternative would be to skirt around to the west, where you really would run into hills. Most likely they’d go Payne Rd/Illowra St which would carve the suburb into two.
The map Sacha linked to (purple option) shows how it crosses the river four times, carving through Moggill and Prior’s Pocket. I can’t see how that is an improvement on widening the main drag, except that it only affects directly 60 properties.
The map steve linked to shows schematically what’s going on. Three highways feed in from the west and then after Goodna the traffic disperses to the Centenary Highway to the north, straight ahead to South Brisbane and to the right into the Logan Motorway linking with the Gold Coast road. That one also links with the Gateway Arterial, which is to be duplicated. Presumably much of the north moving traffic, heading to the northern suburbs and the Sunshine Coast, is meant to go via the Gateway, swinging around to the east of the city.
No-one would expect this to last and because the Centenary is chockers it becomes extremely tempting to make an off-ramp at Moggill and head through Kenmore and The Gap. People in line will see it as inevitable.
Sorry about the detail for non-locals, but to us it really looks like Godzilla comes to town.
I think this sort of detail is what gives a blog a very important sense of place, and separates LP from the twenty-three million other blogs where I could discuss politics.
For non-locals who want to get a grip on the details, here is a google map centred on Moggill, with Ipswich visible towards the south-west corner, and the Brisbane CBD past the north-east corner of the map.
The Brisbane River, about 1 km south of the green arrow that marks Moggill, is the most important physical barrier.
Google is good, David. Those poor buggers in Moggill and Prior’s Pocket thought they had a peaceful rural hide-away only 25km from the GPO, albeit on a flood plain.
Where Godzilla comes back to Ipswich Road at the eastern end he knocks a bit off a golf course and side-swipes the Wolston Park psychiatric hospital.
For the record I live in Ashgrove and I always favoured Route 20 (now Route 5, I believe) as a way of coming from the west and even interstate to the northern suburbs and the Sunshine Coast. The hill and shopping strip at Bardon was the only real problem. Some kind of grid pattern, suitably modified according to topography and other circumstances has always seemed rational to me.
With Route 5 in place I’d then look at Esk and the Brisbane Valley.
A well-worn transport route alerady exists from Melbourne up through Goondiwindi to Miles, Taroom and then to Rockhampton.
Anybody who likes local comedy check out the transcript of yesterday’s state parliament question time. Seeney asked a sneering question of Beattie and it emerged that Seeney was there at the same meeting himself and the printgate story has turned the tories into gibbering,traumatised clowns.
Do you mean route 13 from Mt Lindsey at the border, route 93 from Rathdownie and then National 15/State 61 joining route 5 at Brookwater?
Or extending Route 5 south?
Hi Brian,
You are forgetting the tunnel, which will eventally connect from Ipswich road at Buranda to the gateway, that will link the west with the north. This detail is beyond steve’s map.
But whether or not this will remove the need for a western bypass in the long term…?
Don’t know about the tunnel, so I’ll stick with what I know.
Route 5 in the current UBD comes from the Western Freeway at Toowong and heads left at the roundabout near the cemetry into Frederick St. It proceeds up past Government House, then to Jubilee Terrace and Wardell St. At Everton Park it turns left into Stafford Road and thence to Gympie Road (Route 3).
Rather than turning right into Stafford Road I imagine a proper ring road would link with Beckett Rd or Maundrell Tce to join Gympie Road at Carseldine. Those roads and some others are used now by people heading north.
There is a big bottle-kneck behind Government House, especially in McGregor Tce leading into Jubilee Tce. There it merges with people travelling from the City to Bardon, Ashgrove and The Gap.
There were about 6 options of tunnelling, bypassing and flying over. A lot of properties along the way had been repossessed and planning was well advanced (1980s, I think). It all came unstuck because of an effective Route 20 lobby group, led by a bloke who went on to become a freelance traffic consultant around the world. I’ve forgottewn his mname, but I don’t think anyone here pays for his services.
OK, I see what you mean. The entry to route 5 is not so relevant as the fact that it can be used to divert Sunshine Coast etc traffic through the western suburbs, as you describe.
Arch, thinking about that Buranda tunnel, I suppose it would take some of the Western bypass traffic, but it is a long way round for those heading way north and doesn’t cater for those heading for the inner western and northern suburbs.
Brian: What ever way they plan the Western Bypass, it sounds bloody horrible. At the moment, I’m staying with my parents in The Gap two streets away from Illowra. I walk up that street (and down a bit of Settlement) to catch the bus in the mornings. A nice walk up the hill, with no overpasses in sight.
The locals aren’t too happy with upgrading Gap Creek/Dillon to bitumen. Expect the whole suburb to become NIMBY central when the bypass plans are finalized.
The only route I can see that makes me happy for me is to build the thing just east of The Gap, and then tunnel under Brompton into Upper Kedron. The latter seems to be unoccupied land that was cleared for development, but has lain vacant for a decade or so. But that would really blow the estimates.
I suspect the whole issue is moot with Peak Oil. It’s no use building bypasses when petrol is expensive and less available, as may happen in a couple of years.
Brian, steve, et al: thanks for that info. I’m afraid my mind is already spinning too much from the info to safely look up the map references cited.
But the thought did occur to me that this is unfolding very much like a script from “The Games”. Any chance of involving Clarke, Dawe and Riley?
Don, the real farce here is the interaction between the three layers of government. Where we are the local road was subject to rat-running, so the BCC did some traffic calming to force the cars back onto the larger roads, which are state government responsibility.
The Feds are responsible for the national highways but whatever they do has implications for the roads in other jurisdictions. You have endless planning, all agree and then Godzilla just decides to do something else (much more expensive) anyway.
Down and Out Of Sà i Gòn, it’s nice where you are. I know the area quite well.
At the other end of Dillon/The Gap Creek Rd at Kenmore Hills it’s some of the most pleasant suburbia you’d see anywhere. I drive through 6-8 times a week and it lifts my spirits every time.
Brompton/ Upper Kedron is west of The Gap on my map and just east of Enoggera Reservoir, but you’re right, it should cause least bother there. But Kenmore would be a mess whichever option was taken.
I’m not sure that Peak Oil is going to stop the car. We could achieve a decarbonised grid in Australia and use electric cars or equivalent. The freedom that wheels give you is going to be hard to give up on and may not be necessary.
Brian, I’m not up to speed with all the western bypass ideas. Is there an idea of a bypass from Ipswich to the northern suburbs of Brisbane or north of Brisbane (say, Strathpine) that avoids the western suburbs of Brisbane (ie, doesn’t go through Moggill, Karana Downs, The Gap) ?
One point about this, that always comes to my mind here in Sydney, is that it sometimes seems that people aren’t willing to share the pain around. It’s certainly an issue in the inner city.
Sasha, I didn’t really understand this – if anything the opposite is true. The inner west NIMBYs are to blame for all sorts of piecemeal approaches/tortured compromises like the Anzac Bridge, that absurd bottleneck at the start of Victoria Rd Rozelle, the F4 stopping at Strathfield (there are so many others but I’ll stop there), and the fact that rail lines to the ports have to compete with passenger traffic.
Nobody moves to Glebe to get the sort of natural ensconcement one finds in Otford or Bullaburra or Cherrybrook, and once people realise that we’ll all understand the city better.
Brian, I didn’t say the tunnel would work
just relaying some of the thinking of my ex-work collegues from DMR. Of course, heavy freight won’t be able to take the North-south bypass tunnel, so in the future, without a western bypass, nothbound freight will have to continue to either take the Logan motorway and the Gateway, or head on in to Granard road and get onto the Gateway via Kessels road and Mt Gravatt-Capalaba road – the so called ‘Brisbane urban corridor’. If some of the heavy freight could be removed from the Ipswich motorway then surely that would improve the traffic.
A hidden issue, alluded to by Andrew E, is that there are no standard gauge freight rail links between Toowoomba (and effectively the rest of Australia) and the Port of Brisbane, or north of Brisbane. Frieght from the interior has to travel down the range and though Ipswich to get to Acacia Ridge, and most of it just keeps going all the way through to the Port itself. The train line west from the port stops at Acacia Ridge, is close to capacity, has to compete with the citytrains (as Andrew E points out), and travels straight through the ‘burbs. When I used to live in Hawthorne we could hear the screeching wheels of the freight trains as they went through the bends at Norman Park and Morningside. Must be hell for those living nearer to the tracks.
If some dedicated freight rail links are built then at least some of the commuter traffic problems should be eased. That goes for the entire country, not just Brisbane.
Thanks, Arch. No probs. I had never heard of the tunnel. What you say makes sense and shows that our transport infrastructure is in an even bigger mess than most of us thought.
Sacha, I rang Geraldine Knapp’s office today. She represents The Gap Ward in the BCC and usually knows what is going on. They told me that there was nothing stirring. There was provision for a study in the State budget, but it’s not happening this year and they spent the money on something else.
What’s more Geraldine sez that the route through The Gap just won’t happen, which means not in the foreseeable future.
I think a bypass through Moggill and the heading left at Rafting Ground Road just before Kenmore would be feasible. It’s acerages on the left and not many houses on the right. You’d miss Kenmore Hills, swing past the Brookfield Showgrounds, which is sacred territory, and then head down Gold Creek Rd for a bit before linking with The Gap Creek Rd.
I’d reckon Karana Downs is safe because you need to come east to pick up the Cunningham Highway (Warwick) traffic.
Strathpine/Lawnton/Petrie is where you’d probably join the main north road. On a map it’s practically a straight line from Moggill through the back of The Gap.
If I get time I’ll ring my local State member, because it’s their road. But Geraldine Knapp’s information is probably better than theirs.
Thanks Brian.
Andrew E – sorry I wasn’t clear. What I was attempting to say was that NIMBYism is alive and well in inner Sydney.
Hi All,
There are a lot of houses now on the gap end of Gap Creek / Dillon Roads – some of these houses would need to be resumed.
Also, at the very end of Payne road, there are $1Mill plus houses that would overlook the road should it run directly accross the road to the West of Yoorala Street.
Between Yoorala Street (which is the street running directly East of the Enoggera Dam wall) and the Dam Wall is Enoggera Creek and a large area on parkland. Would they be likely to fill in or build over Enoggera creek, given that it is in a catchment area, and that the creek flows all the way as far as Herston and beyond?
The Dam spillway also flows into Enoggera creek. It would be a shame if the Yoorala Street area was distroyed, but it looks like the obvious choice, given that there are large tracts of parkland in that area.
Your thoughts?