Ms GAMBARO (9:49 AM) —Yesterday in the heart of my electorate of Petrie the reality of south-east Queensland's crippling transport crisis came back to haunt a state government determined to ignore it. Just two months ago, I spoke in this House about Queensland Transport's refusal to fund two urgently needed infrastructure projects. The first is the long promised Redcliffe rail link promoted by Queensland Transport's own integrated 2007 plan. The second is the urgent replacement of the overcapacity, malfunctioning and frighteningly unsafe Houghton Highway bridge. At the time I said:

I went on to say that the crisis had led me to launch a petition to the Queensland Premier, calling on him to reverse his decision to axe the rail link and to reconsider the upgrading of the bridge. The petition was delivered to the Premier on 12 September. Last night, he finally tabled it in state parliament. That was fateful timing because, just hours before that, the Houghton Highway—which 7,000 Queensland voters have demanded the state transport minister replace—demonstrated dramatically what happens when a minister announces that it is all too hard and opts for retirement, leaving commuters at the mercy of ageing, obsolete and unsafe infrastructure. To illustrate exactly what happened, I will quote from page 3 of today's Courier-Mail. The article reads:

`A horror peak hour run'. The article continues:

The member for Lilley has gone, but I can tell him that the traffic was banked up all the way to Sandgate. The article goes on:

I hope that what happened last night will wake him up, because 4BC radio reported that he had fallen asleep at a transport crisis public meeting held in Brisbane on Tuesday night. It is not good enough. I think that the transport minister should take a ride over the Houghton Highway bridge. There are plenty of people stuck out there with time to kill and lots of issues that they would like to talk to him about.