By STEVE GRAY
IT’S been dubbed the worst road in Australia, but it was also the only route from north to south left open during floods in recent years.
The Mt Lindesay Highway is strategic route and should be treated as such, said Federal Member for Maranoa Bruce Scott.
“It’s an important transport link between the Southern Downs into the Northern Rivers of New South Wales,” Mr Scott said.
“It’s a trade route, it’s a tourism route. It’s in a situation right now where it presents dangers to the travelling public, school bus operators and of course the transport operators who daily take livestock down for processing in Casino.”
Mr Scott joined Member for New England Barnaby Joyce, Downs to Rivers Action Committee chair Cr Neil Meiklejohn, representatives of Tenterfield, Kyogle and Richmond Valley councils and NSW MP Thomas George in Canberra where they lobbied Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, seeking an initial $30 million to begin upgrading the road.
“We are all as one,” Mr Scott said. “We need money now.
“It’s a strategic route and I think that’s the sort of definition we should put on that road because of the economic importance it is to both sides of the border, the Northern Rivers and also here and the Darling Downs.
“If we can upgrade it to a high standard it can become a relief valve if we ever lose – pray that we don’t – Cunningham’s Gap in the future,” Mr Scott said.
“In fact it was the only road that remained opened in the disastrous floods that closed the Toowoomba Range crossing, Cunningham’s, the D’Aguilar, Heifer Creek Road – it was the only one that remained open.
“So that reminds us all, there is an opportunity here to put in a road, not only for the upgrade for the normal traffic that could increasingly use it, but also in times of natural disasters that could occur in the future.
“Let’s be prepared for them, because when that happened last time, the whole of the West was cut off from transportation of fuel and food and milk and perishables as well as medical.
“It’s an important road that I’m pushing.”
Queensland still nominates it as the Mt Lindesay Highway, however in NSW it is known as Mt Lindesay Road.
