Mayor has budget concerns
Questions on key projects
Toowoomba mayor Paul Antonio said he is “concerned” key projects for the region are being ignored by the federal government, despite praising some parts of the latest budget.
Upgrades to the Toowoomba Sports Ground, also known as Clive Berghofer Stadium,
have been locked in as part of the $935m Minor Venues program to build or improve 16 sporting assets across regional Queensland.
But a number of other road and rail projects relating to Toowoomba have not been included in the budget handed down by Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Tuesday night, with the federal government to review almost its entire infrastructure pipeline over the next 90 days.
These include the Toowoomba to Seymour road project (worth $510m) and a planned upgrade of the Warrego Highway between Toowoomba and Ipswich (valued at $75m).
While Mr Antonio appreciated the upgrades to the stadium, he said the lack of urgency around the Inland Rail needed rectifying.
“In terms of positive things, the funding for the Toowoomba Sports Ground in the 2032 Olympics have been announced and there will be opportunities through the $600m Growing Regions program,” he said.
“As far as we’re concerned, there’s significant money for the Clontarf Foundation, which improves the education and employment prospects (of) Indigenous students and there is $32m given, shared between Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland.
“They operate in Toowoomba so we’re pretty happy about that.
“(But with) things like the Inland Rail, there is absolutely no doubt this project has been fooled around with – it’s a necessary piece of infrastructure.
“There’s a 90-day review of much of the expenditure of the infrastructure fund, so all of that is going back for another review.”
Mr Antonio also lamented the lack of transparency around funding for the SEQ City Deal, which includes the $25m CBD Railway Parklands project.
“I have a degree of confidence it will go ahead, but it has been held up and it’s hard to get the facts around it,” he said.
“The City Deal is about three levels of government coming together (and the parklands) are a catalytic project that will bring opportunities for investment.”
Mr Antonio again urged the new federal government to review its approach to funding local councils, which had suffered from reduced financial support through grants and tax revenue.
“I continually talk about the support by both state and federal government of local governments and their failure to keep pace with the needs of local government in regards to infrastructure,” he said.
LNP Groom MP Garth Hamilton called the budget a “failure”, also commenting on the delays surrounding the Inland Rail (that had occurred both before and after the 2022 election).
“Despite the fanfare about the review of Inland Rail, the budget fails to provide the framework needed to see the project delivered and brought to Toowoomba,” he said.
“There is no detail on the Railway Parklands projects under the SEQ City Deal.
“Even worse, the Treasurer failed to even mention ‘roads’ in his budget speech.”