26 Sep CARELESS BUREAUCRACY THREATENS TO SEVER MAJOR HIGHWAY

The carelessness of the bureaucrats in Queensland’s Transport and Main Roads (TMR) never ceases to amaze, Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) Leader and Member for Traeger Robbie Katter has said.

Despite being the last day of school holidays and with bushfires being fought in the area, the regional office of Main Roads was pressing ahead with severing the Flinders Highway for four hours on Friday between 9am and 1pm.

“As soon as I heard about these ridiculous plans to close the highway in the middle of the day, I requested that they be postponed to a quieter day, and be conducted overnight,” Mr Katter said.

“The last time TMR thought about cutting a major highway (to conduct works on the Gilbert River Bridge), we pushed back, and they changed their plans to instead conduct the works at night – a much less disruptive time.

“But it’s absolutely infuriating to hear the TMR boffins happy to cut the Flinders highway during peak time for families returning from school holidays, and risking the movement of essential firefighting equipment.”

Mr Katter had also implored Transport Minister Bart Mellish to act and pull his bureaucrats into reality.

“Can you imagine if this were the Bruce Highway down south, on the last Friday of school holidays, and it was arbitrarily closed, with no alternate route, for four hours in the middle of the day – there would be civil unrest in Brisbane.

“If the Minister will not put a stop to this madness, perhaps the Premier will have to,” Mr Katter said.

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