Highway work starts soon

THE Traveston Crossing dam proposal is no longer a barrier to re-routing the notorious Cooroy-to-Curra stretch of the Bruce Highway and the State Government is already looking for earthmoving contractors to start work on the project, Queensland Main Roads Minister Warren Pitt has told The Gympie Times.

Mr Pitt said the section of new highway intended to by-pass the proposed dam's inundation area had originally been considered a State financial responsibility, because of its association with the dam project.

On a visit to Gympie late last year, Mr Pitt said the Queensland Government would fund that section of highway, conditional on the dam being approved by federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett.

He said the state government would not otherwise spend its own money on a federal highway.

However, Mr Pitt announced this week that the federal government had now “fortuitously” accepted the route around the dam footprint as the final route anyway.

He said planning was almost complete and the government “is looking for tenders from earthmoving contractors to start work”.

Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese did not speak directly to the paper this week, but his spokesperson said the Rudd Government's $200 million was “$200 million more than the conservative parties had allocated while in government. Warren Truss was there for 11 years and he was Transport Minister.

“They announced $700 million at five minutes to midnight on the eve of the election and it was never more than an unfunded promise,” he said.