Bruce Highway - Bowen to Innisfail Flood Resilience

Funding program Investment Road and Rail Program
Status In planning
Transport mode Road
Expected start/finish Mid 2027 - Mid 2029
Estimated project cost $175,000,000
Australian Government contribution $52,500,000
State QLD

Project description

Provide new medium level culverts at the Plantation Creek causeway and improve bridge hydrology and hydraulics and join Ed Kratzman and Overflow Bridge at Ollera Creek.

Benefits

The project will repair and uplift damaged sections of the Bruce Highway to improve flood immunity at low-lying, high-risk areas that experienced extreme wet weather in January and February 2025. This weather resulted in the Bruce Highway being closed in numerous sections for several days which prevented emergency services and freight vehicles accessing major centres north of Bowen including Townsville, Ingham and Cairns.

Funding

The Australian Government has committed $140 million to the project including $52.5 million under the Infrastructure Investment Program and $87.5 million as part of a broader assistance package from the Australian Government. The remaining $35 million is provided by the Queensland Government.

Timetable

Construction is expected to commence in mid 2027 and be completed in mid 2029.

Project last updated: 4 Feb 2026

Disclaimer: The material contained in this site is made available on the understanding that the Department is not thereby engaged in rendering professional advice for a particular purpose. Before relying on the material in any important matter, users should carefully evaluate the accuracy, completeness and relevance of the information for their purposes and should obtain appropriate professional advice relevant to their particular circumstances.

Project disclaimer

Submissions or registrations of interest to be kept informed about the progress of this work, can be made directly via email to costestimation@infrastructure.gov.au or by using the form below.

Items marked with (required) are mandatory fields.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Organisation

Position

Please enter your comment (required)

Attachments

Maximum 3 files.
10 MB limit.
Allowed types: txt, pdf, jpg, doc, docx, ppt, pptx, xls, and, xlsx.
10 MB limit per form.

Australian Privacy Principle 5 Notice

Your submission, including any personal information supplied, is being collected by the department for the purpose of seeking public and industry comment on the approach and content of its proposed cost estimation guidance, in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (the Privacy Act).

Your personal information will be stored securely by the department. It may be used by the department to make further contact with you about the consultation process. Your personal information will not be disclosed to any other third parties, except in the circumstances outlined below.

Submissions, in part or full, including the name of the author may be published on the department's website or in the Government's response, unless the submission is confidential. Confidential submissions (including author name) will not be published. Private addresses and contact details will not be published or disclosed to any third parties unless required by law.

Submissions will only be treated as confidential if they are expressly stated to be confidential. Automatically generated confidentiality statements or disclaimers appended to an email do not suffice for this purpose. If you wish you make a confidential submission, you should indicate this by ensuring your submission is marked confidential.

Confidential submissions will be kept securely and will only be disclosed in the following circumstances:

in response to a request by a Commonwealth Minister;
where required by a House or a Committee of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia; or where required by law.

The department may also disclose confidential submissions within the Commonwealth of Australia, including with other Commonwealth agencies, where necessary in the public interest.

Please note that in order to protect the personal privacy of individuals in accordance with the Privacy Act any submissions containing sensitive information, personal information or information which may reasonably be used to identify a person or group of people may not be published, even if not marked as confidential.

The department's privacy policy contains information regarding complaint handling processes and how to access and/or seek correction of personal information held by the department. The Privacy Officer can be contacted on (02) 6274 6495.