Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - The Midland Highway is a matter that has been discussed all over the place. It has been discussed through local government, local government have moved motions on it for it to become a four-lane highway, they have been meeting with mayors, they have been meeting with the Premier and ministers and it goes on and on and on and you wonder where it is going to end.

It is the National Highway, as we have said, and it does seem that it has been neglected over a period of time in favour of some other highways in this State. If you specifically look at the Bass Highway and the expenditure there, the Bass Highway from Latrobe right through to Burnie is a very good highway.

It has everything in it that we would want and that we are talking about now for the Midland Highway.

Mr Martin - Four lanes.

Mr DEAN - It is four-lane and huge amounts of money have been spent on it. You wonder why. It certainly needed work on it, of course, and I travelled on it when it was a poor road. It was simply single lanes either way and needed a lot of work and there were a lot of accidents on it but when you look at what has happened there now and compare that with the Midland Highway you do wonder why.

I am not going to complain too much because I appreciate the money that has been spent on the East Tamar Highway at the present time. I applaud DIER, the State Government and the Federal Government for making that money available to get that highway into a good state.

Ms Thorp - There were a lot of us driving on it on Sunday as well and yesterday.

Mr DEAN - You would have noticed a lot of work going on there and a lot of completed stretches, with the Dilston bypass to commence in about February of next year, 2010. We are looking forward to that.

Mr Gaffney - Maybe the north and south money has been spent on the Aurora Stadium and the Bellerive Cricket Ground and we have the good roads.

Mr DEAN - Yes, right. Do I support the motion? I can partially support the motion but I am not quite sure whether I can support the motion the whole way through. When it comes to voting I suppose what I will do is say yes, followed up by no in the later vote. I will have a little bit both ways. It is probably the only way I can handle this one.

The member for Launceston talked about Constitution Hill and there have been a lot of deaths there, there is no doubt about that. I remember very well my cousin was killed on that section of road on her way to pick up her wedding dress. It was the most tragic situation; she was an only child in that family.

You have to question the engineers in this situation because the current design really leaves a lot to be desired. It is fairly narrow. It is not, in my personal view, a well-designed section of the National Highway. I suppose what we have to do now is wait until the Liberal Party get into government next year when they will obviously pull all of that out and it will become a four-lane highway going through that area.

Mr Parkinson - I'm going to have something to say about that, about their plan.

Mr DEAN - It is going to be interesting to see what happens there in the future, but you do wonder. As I said, it is an interesting piece of road infrastructure, there is no doubt about that at all.

There have been a lot of letters in the paper over this and one letter recently was written by a person who compares the Midland Highway with a number of highways on the mainland and he made reference to the Newell Highway, the New England Highway, the Cunningham Highway and there were others that he mentioned saying that they are far busier highways than the Midland Highway yet they are simply single-lane highways in most of the areas. That is the comparison that is made continuously.

Mr Hall - Through you, Madam Deputy President - you also have the Hume Highway, the Pacific Highway and several other routes as well that are four lane.

Mr DEAN - Oh yes. I have not had a look at the road count, but I would suspect that the use of those highways is far greater than the use that is currently made of the Midland Highway. I would think - I have not looked at the statistical data on that but I would suspect that that could well be the case. There is no doubt about it and the member for Launceston is absolutely right; for us who travel that highway on a regular basis it is, without doubt in my opinion, in the worst state that it has ever been in for a rough surface, for rutting. Rutting of the road is exceptional in some places. Water lies in some sections of it.

There is a section I can recall - and the member of Launceston I think would recall it as well - as you are going around Ross just across the bridge on the highway and a left-hand curve where there was an area on the highway that obviously had not been sealed properly and would throw the car to the right every time you went around it. Travelling at 110 kilometres an hour your vehicle would veer to the right. It has been attended to over the past few months to try to remove that, but it is still there and you can still feel it as you are travelling and I noticed it again last night.

There are some areas on that road that really, in my opinion, are dangerous and need to be fixed and should be done now. If the maintenance of this road deteriorates in the way it currently is then it will almost be a rebuild of the highway anyway. I am not quite sure what the maintenance program of DIER is because it is becoming a patchwork quilt and -

Ms Forrest - You should go down the west coast a bit more often and you will see a patchwork quilt.

Mr DEAN - Is that right? It will not be long before it resembles the Mud Walls Road back into Colebrook the way it is going. It really is in a fairly ordinary state. I question DIER in relation to the maintenance of that road and where it is going and what stage it is at, but it is in a very, very poor state.

There is no doubt it needs priority work and perhaps the Leader will advise us of where that is in his discussion in relation to this matter.

Mr Wing - First he needs to realise what a parlous state it is in.

Mr Parkinson - I will just have to stop going to sleep.

Mr DEAN - As my wife said to me the other day, she used to always - and she did it last night a couple of times - ring me on the way to make sure I was not dozing off while I was driving. As she said, she really does not have to do that because there is little chance of that happening now with the state of the highway; that would keep me well and truly awake. That was her comment and I think she is pretty right. So, the rough surface has its advantages and benefits.

What do we do? Do we improve the highway or do we look at some other aspects of travel between the north and the south of the State. We have already looked at rail. Money is being spent on rail and the State is taking over rail again and one can see, perhaps, a greater use being made of rail so that will help with the number of vehicles on the Midland Highway. If you look at shipping you can ask why should we not transport more freight by way of ships into Hobart? However, we are told that is uneconomical and the time delays do not make it worth pursuing. Then you have got air freight. I do not think air freight is ever going to take over and I do not think air freight is ever going to make a lot of difference between the freight movements from the north, the north-west and the south of the State. I do not think that is going to make much of a change. So, you have got to look at the highway and where we are going.

A comment I want to make is that we need to get our priorities right and this is why I made the comment at the beginning as to whether I can support the whole of the motion. If you look at the parlous state and the problems that we currently have with our health system, a lot of people are saying that we need to get our priorities right. Of course we do need to have a safe highway, but we also need to attend to the area that is horribly uppermost in everybody's mind; that is, health. If you ask most people out there now today, Madam Deputy President, I would be surprised if the answer did not come back from many of those people that we need to get our health system right in the first instance.

I will read a letter to the editor from the Examiner today on the topic of health care. A headline in the Examiner of 21 October was 'Our Ailing Health Care':

'Every Tasmanian knows and must be concerned about the lack of facilities and so on in our hospitals.

I refer to bed shortages, staff being overworked and understaffing, yet our politicians, and potential politicians, continue to go on about a four-lane Midland Highway that could cost $2 billion (The Examiner, Oct. 21).

These Labor and Liberal candidates ask us to vote for them, but they must be joking. They conveniently ignore our problems because they do not care.'

Mr Parkinson - Sounds like an independent, was it?

Mr DEAN - I do not know whether it is an independent member or not. I have got no idea, but it is signed 'P A Grout, Summerhill'.

There are a lot of people out there saying that we need a good highway, an improved highway, some of the lanes should be extended, there should be more overtaking lanes, and support that position moving forward, as opposed to a four-lane highway from the north to the south of the State. I think that they are probably being realistic when you consider the expenditure and the cost. I want to quote from an editorial in the Mercury, Thursday 15 October:

'Ideally, Tasmania should have a four-lane, dual-carriage highway running from the state's capital to Launceston.

Ideally, Hobart should also have a brand spanking new tertiary hospital to provide 21st century treatment to the state's sick and injured.

Ideally, Hobart should have an AFL team with a new home stadium within walking distance of the city.'

No, that should be in Launceston.

'Ideally, Tasmania should have a lot of things, but this is not an ideal world - far from it.

The state Liberals' plan for a new four-lane Midland Highway is a grand idea but there are more pressing issues to be dealt with and a limited amount of funds available.'

There are many issues relative to a super-highway moving forward.

Mr Martin - It's not a super-highway, it's just a four-lane highway like anywhere else.

Mr DEAN - It would be a super-highway for us in Tasmania.

Mr Martin - For the poor cousins of Tasmania.

We probably are the poor cousins, but for us it would be a super-highway, if you look at what we currently have and to all of a sudden have four lanes. That is the ultimate, there is no doubt about that. but I think there are a lot of things that can be done in the meantime to make that highway much safer. If you look at the accidents that occurred on Black Thursday - the nine deaths with seven on the Midland Highway - and ask, was the road surface or road design a contributing factor? We cannot comment; that is a decision that the coroner will make. It would seem that the road condition was not taken into account, from the facts that we know and from what we have read so far.

Mr Wing - The type of road was a factor - if it had been a four-lane, divided road, those accidents would not have happened.

Mr DEAN - The member for Launceston makes that comment by way of interjection. The comment that I was going to make was that if you could now start at least dividing the south- north-bound lanes by wire rope or Armco railing or what have you in some of the more dangerous areas of that highway, you could make a difference. I keep pushing this all the time. I keep pushing for the wire rope barriers and the Armco railing on the road verges, because a lot of the deaths in this State have occurred this year by people running off the verge of the road into a tree or into something else on the side of the road.

There are a lot of things that can be done right now that do not require a four-lane highway to fix these problems or to at least to make the highway safer. I will not comment any further. As I have said, I have to consider whether I support the entire motion. I cannot support part of it but not the rest of it, can I, Madam President.

Certainly, we do need some changes and I urge DIER to look a the current condition of that highway. It would be interesting to see what would happen if we brought somebody like ARRB out from Victoria with all of that sophisticated equipment they have to run down the Midland Highway now and to get a report from that organisation - an organisation that DIER make a contribution to. It would be interesting to get a report from them on the condition of the Midland Highway and what they would say about the current speed limit on that highway, whether it is suitable for 110 kilometres per hour.

Ms Forrest - We should be doing 110 kilometres per hour around the back of Wynyard if that is the case, because that is in much better nick than the Midland Highway.

Mr DEAN - Is that right?

Ms Forrest - It is only single lane each way, but I think that 100 kilometres per hour is fine for it. It is in good nick, that one.

Mr DEAN - That is a good comment. Maybe DIER would consider getting that group over here with their sophisticated equipment to run down the Midland Highway to give us some position on what should be happening there in the very near future. It needs maintenance and it should be done right now.