Maranoa's Bruce Scott MP and the Range Crossing

Bruce Scott, MP, has held the Federal electorate of Maranoa since 1990. He can be described as the venerable senior statesman of the National Party. You can see from the Electoral Commission's voting tables that in last year's elections Scott earned 70.9% of the Maranoa vote after preferences. And 60.5% on his own.

The electorate map shows the immensity of Maranoa - running from Dalby to the South Australian border, north beyond Winton, south to Mungindi and Cunnamulla and west to Bedourie and Birdsville.

Now take a close look at the Warrego Highway and how it runs into the Diamantina Development Road - and give yourself a good reminder how this huge volume of traffic out to the west funnels up our risky Range Crossing and through Toowoomba. And look how our relatively little Groom electorate nestles into Maranoa's eastern edge.

Now, let's all shed a tear for Ian Macfarlane, Howard Cabinet Minister and MP for Groom , about the tirades of criticism he endures about the inadequacies of the Crossing and his lack of influence in getting it fixed.

Bruce Scott by comparison gets off Scott free, to coin a phrase. So where has his powerful political voice been, representing communities totally about 90,000 almost equal to Toowoomba's population? And how effective has Scott's influence been? Or that of the Nationals?