A PRECEDENT FOR M1 DEAL

A QUEENSLAND Labor government was prepared to meet Canberra halfway in a funding deal to fix the M1 in the past, so the standoff in the financial carve-up now is simply posturing and nonsense.

Indeed it was the Beattie government in May 2005 that blew up when the Federal Budget that year failed to include any booty for a project to widen the Pacific Motorway from four to six lanes between Nerang and Tugun.

Since then, the road has been widened from Nerang down to Mudgeeraba. That’s good, but it has also simply pushed the bottleneck further south.

How the pendulum has swung. Back then, it was the state that was ready to go with a 50-50 deal and it was a federal coalition government that was being recalcitrant. The state transport minister of the time, Paul Lucas, came out swinging, saying Queensland was prepared to pay half the cost of what back then would have been a $200 million upgrading.

“The Queensland government cash is on the table for a joint 50-50 funding arrangement, as has happened in the past,’’ Mr Lucas said.

There you have it. So why, when Labor back then was ready to go halves with the Howard government to bring an end to the bottleneck misery at the southern end of the M1, is the Palaszczuk Government – through its Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey – insisting the carveup has always been 80-20?

The word now is that federal-state negotiations are proceeding well and we could see a deal soon. Fair dinkum. How many years has this ridiculous game of tossing the hot potato been going on?

That “soon’’ can’t come soon enough for the long-suffering drivers who are incensed that despite both sides of politics at federal level putting $1 billion offers on the table, Mr Bailey keeps ducking the decision we all want. Until common sense wins through, commuters, families, businesses and the economy continue to suffer.