06 Sep NATIONAL DISGRACE: KATTER VISITS MYALL CK BRIDGE ON ‘NATIONAL HIGHWAY 1’

“What an absolute disgrace” – the response from Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) Leader and State Member for Traeger Robbie Katter on a recent visit to Weipa and surrounding regions with KAP’s Candidate for Cook Duane Amos.

“It’s a national embarrassment that the only road access to our Northern precincts with more than 8,000 permanent residents and 80,000 more tourists each year still has 145 kilometres of unsealed ‘highway’ and rickety wooden bridges such as the Myall Creek Bridge in use – and this is the ‘National Highway 1’,” Mr Katter said.

The KAP’s Candidate for Cook Duane Amos explained that the economic hub of Weipa was routinely cut off from the south from heavy vehicles due to the 25-tonne load limit slapped on the deteriorating wooden infrastructure.

In combination with the annual wet season and flooding events, the region was landlocked by Mother Nature for months.

“Myall Creek Bridge should be an historic tourist attraction at best for the 80,000 southern tourists, not an integral part of the National Highway, and it’s a visual reminder of the failed investment into our road network,” Mr Amos said.

“This heavy vehicle alternate deep concrete culvert goes under at the first sign of a river flow, while the 25-tonne rated timber bridge quickly follows, however, remains wholly unsuitable for heavy traffic.”

Mr Amos said the bridge wasn’t just a key route for economical supply to Weipa, but also a vital link for export and produce to get to the Weipa Port and the surrounding remote communities of Mapoon, Aurukun and our southern corridor.

“If the Government, 3,000 kilometres away, invested in wet season-proofing the Peninsula Development Road (PDR) and key crossings, Weipa could have a secure future and all-year access to bauxite mining as far down as Aurukun,” the KAP Candidate said.

Mr Katter said a Cape with a future is a Cape based on industries and diversity including mining, agriculture, maritime, fishing, even timber, but without urgent and overdue investment in rectifying this debacle that was the PDR, the cape remained hamstrung.

“For far too long, the seat of Cook has been the ‘forgotten electorate’, with so-called representation from members of Brisbane-centric parties. The time to change that is now,” the KAP Leader said.

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