Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I wish to make a short comment in relation to a matter of significance and importance to the people of the northern suburbs, the people of the Nunamara-Myrtle Park area. I understand this matter was raised today in another place as well and deals with the Prossers Road. Prossers Road is an 11 km stretch of road that runs from the Tasman Highway at Nunamara to Lilydale Road. It is a significant road that was originally built for forestry operations. It has now become a fairly major piece of infrastructure. Two years ago when they completed a survey on this road it was carrying 1 200 vehicles daily. This is just a rural gravel road. Almost 50 per cent of those 1 200 if not more vehicles, using that road daily are commercial vehicles.

The reason I raise this is that the road is seen as dangerous in its current state. I travelled it very recently and would say that currently it is only fit for four-wheel drive vehicles in certain parts because of the wet conditions, which occur periodically throughout the year when there is a lot of rain. It is currently a council road maintained by the Launceston City Council. It costs the ratepayers of Launceston about $100 000 a year to maintain. Negotiations are currently under way for the State to take over ownership of it because of the use that this road is now being put to.

That process has been under way for some time. At a public meeting held on 19 August, I think, at Myrtle Park in relation to this road, I was extremely upset to hear the representative from DIER suggest to me on a question being asked that he had no understanding or no knowledge of the position of the Launceston City Council in wanting to exchange this road. That has been going on for some time. It has been under way for a number of years to try to exchange that road to the State.

What I want to say is that at this public meeting on 19 August, and I might add that the member for Apsley was there and took a very strong part in support of her people in that area, they passed a number of motions. One of those motions was that they require some immediate action to be taken to make that road safe.

They are calling on local government, State Government and Federal Government to do something about it.

There was a death on the road, as some would recall, only a few weeks ago but nobody can say that it was the road condition that caused the accident and I am not saying that either. It is not known; it is a coronial investigation and that will determine, we would hope, what did happen. The fact is that it is a dangerous road. Sealing is absolutely necessary, moving forward. What I am going to do is to urge the Government to put negotiations into place with a view to getting the funding that is necessary to repair and seal this road or at least bring it into a better condition. We know that the cost will be quite high. At the meeting I thought that $3 million was mentioned.

Ms Rattray - It was $2.1million. By your Launceston City Council representative.

Mr DEAN - However, I understand now - and I am not quite sure and I need to do more checking on this - that the amount of $16 million has been referred to. I would say that is far above what it would take. It is 11 kilometres of road. I know the base would have to be attended to. What I want to say is that there is funding available. I understand that there is $43 million that has been made available under the north-east freight route package. I do not know if that is available to bring this road up to date or what needs to be done. As I said there is great concern about what is going to happen there if some action is not taken. It is an extremely busy arterial road and I would really urge the Government to now look at this and to take it on.

I also note today that Prossers Road is not to be confused with Prossers Forest Road. Discussion at another place today centred around Prossers Forest Road. Prossers Forest Road is in Ravenswood; Prossers Road is the one that I am talking about and it starts at Nunamara and ends at Lilydale Road, or the opposite way if you want to look at it the opposite way.

That is Prossers Road; that is the one that we are talking about. That is the one that needs urgent attention and I would urge the State Government in conjunction with local government if that is needed and the Federal Government to take this matter on as a priority and do something about it.