Marginal seats mean we’re in driver’s seat
HOW is it that Labor did a complete U-turn and funded the Pacific Motorway upgrade? There is a really important lesson here for Gold Coast residents. You see, we are finally in the driver’s seat.
Go back to the beginning of March. The Federal Government leaks an exclusive story which creates headlines about a “cash splash to bust the M1 gridlock”.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull arrives to announce $1 billion to widen the M1 from Brisbane city to Tugun. This is big news on the back of a marathon campaign by this newspaper.
He says he has the money, if the State Government agrees to match it.
Soon after, Federal Opposition leader Bill Shorten echoes the Prime Minister’s plede, saying he too will commit to a 50-50 M1 funding split if elected.
The spotlight is on the PM and Bert van Manen in the northern Coast seat of Forde, a seat the Coalition must win to retain government. His margin is just 0.7 per cent.
Federal MPs on the Coast gather to back slap each other, congratulations all round for their hard-work lobbying for the funding.
From the State Labor Government’s passenger seat, the Federal Government is providing 50 per cent of funding on a highway where the traditional deal calls for an 80-20 split.
The money is “on the table”, the government ensuring the best possible political mileage for a month leading up to its Federal Budget.
Do you think Labor Ministers and MPs could a put spin on that story which would convince us, caught in peakhour congestion, that they were hard done by?
On Federal Budget night, you will find only one line in the Treasurer’s speech or the papers referring to the Gold Coast – this is the $1 billion for the M1. But it’s enough for a good news story.
The next day Deputy Premier Jackie Trad is at the Royal Pines, where she describes the Federal Government’s fix-it plan as a “joke and a hoax”.
A funding table shows substantial money from the Turnbull Government will not kick in for four or five years.
Do you think that will convince us, in peak-hour traffic, that Labor is still hard done by?
The Mudgeeraba to Varsity section of the M1 is being upgraded now. So too the Gateway merge. Everyone knows the best bang for taxpayer dollar is, in two years, for the work teams to continue on widening the road.
But talking to Labor insiders, just in recent weeks, this was personal, like State of Origin, about Queensland being ripped off by Canberra and Sydney. They were not backing down.
So what happened? Some hard heads got together. State Labor needed to replicate what Canberra had achieved. Infrastructure projects had to be announced for the southeast before next month’s State budget.
Who will this help politically? Meaghan Scanlon who has just won Gaven. The ALP needs Coast seats to retain government in the longer term.
Labor effectively moved into the driver’s seat. The LNP MPs here are in the passenger side. Does Labor feel like a winner? “We were shafted. But we also knew this road upgrade has to be completed,” a senior Labor source said.
This is what can be achieved when there are marginal seats, both at State and Federal level, on the Coast. Now let’s get out our shopping list for other muchneeded projects.