Mr IAN MACFARLANE (10:43 PM) —I rise tonight to speak about an issue which is not unfamiliar to this House. It is an issue which I raised in my maiden speech and it is an issue which continues to cause me great concern. It is the second range crossing for the great city of Toowoomba and for the great western part of Queensland. Yesterday afternoon, around 3 o'clock, a miracle occurred. The miracle was that a fully loaded semitrailer completely out of control reached the bottom of the range, crossed the median strip, flattened the rail and yet did not kill anyone. The people of Groom and the people who use the Warrego Highway to Brisbane cannot continue to rely on miracles. It is almost a year to the day and 100 metres to the same spot that a semitrailer of similar build, a double-decker cattle truck, careered out of control down the Toowoomba Range. On that occasion, we were less fortunate than yesterday—but still fortunate in that no-one was killed—because one person in an oncoming vehicle was quite badly injured.

It is simply unacceptable that a city as magnificent as Toowoomba, a region as vital and as important in the economic cycle of Australia as the Darling Downs and an area as vast as the western part of Queensland is being serviced by this road and continues to be disadvantaged by a road that is really just a clogged artery. It is unacceptable that this road is the only access from western Queensland through Toowoomba to Brisbane. It is unacceptable that 8,000 trucks a day travel through the heart of Toowoomba—that is one truck every 10 seconds—to access Brisbane from places as far afield as Darwin. There is no other city in Australia the size of Toowoomba, which is the second biggest inland city in Australia after Canberra, that does not have a bypass, and there is certainly no other city in Australia that has an access road which is so slow and so dangerous as Toowoomba's.

It is time something was done about this road, before someone is killed. It is time that this road was moved to the top of the priority list in Australia's national highway system. It is simply unacceptable in the extreme to have a situation where the economic development and the safety of a region are being compromised. This issue should not be sidelined and continue to be sidelined simply because of its cost—$300 million is a lot of money in anyone's language, but the lives of people and the economic development of regional Australia are at risk. The economic development of regional areas west of Toowoomba is being hampered by a range crossing which continues to slow the development, which continues to create enormous problems and from time to time because of accidents sees the greatest inland city in Australia, bar none, isolated from its capital city of Brisbane.

It is unacceptable that this situation continue, and it is about time those members who sit opposite us allow us to sell Telstra and reinvest the money that is currently invested in Telstra in improving the infrastructure of regional Australia. It is about time that people realised that government involvement in Telstra is no longer required and that that company should be cut free and allowed to operate in a commercial sense and that this government be allowed to reinvest the people's assets in infrastructure which is going to develop inland Australia—infrastructure like roads, like railways and like water.

Before I close, though, and while speaking about issues related to safety on the road, I should mention that this Friday—it is very opportune that the member for Scullin mentioned the Brock family—a descendant of the Brock family, Peter Brock, will launch the fourth book in the Giddy Goanna series, a great little child safety project which I happen to be chairman of—but I am completely unbiased—at the Willmot Park School near Craigieburn in the wonderful electorate of McEwen, well represented by a good Liberal member. That book will continue the process of Giddy Goanna. It happens to be about road safety and keeping our kids safe on the road. I commend the book the House, and I suggest that those people who are committed to road safety and preserving their children and their grandchildren buy a copy of that book and have a good browse through it. (Time expired)