Queensland LNP Senate candidates this week travelled to Toowoomba to confirm the LNP's commitment to build the Toowoomba range crossing. 

Local State member, Trevor Watts, the Member for Toowoomba North, showed the team the current roadworks at the range, and the delays that confirm why a range crossing is so needed.

Matthew Canavan, a Senate candidate for the LNP who lives in Toowoomba said that "It should not take us as long to go from Wilsonton to Withcott as it normally would from Mount Lofty to Mount Gravatt. Something has to be done because this gridlock is holding up the business of our nation.

"It's great that the Senate team could come and see this road first hand because building the bypass is not just important for Toowoomba it's important for the whole of Queensland. The quicker we can get the wheat, grain and coal west of Toowoomba to the Brisbane port and Asian markets the more jobs we can create and the higher our standard of living will be."

Theresa Craig, a Senate candidate with a background in agricultural science said that "Agriculture is going to be so important for our future but you can't just grow produce and fatten cattle, you need to move that to markets too. That's why the range crossing is so important and why the LNP is backing this investment."

The LNP has announced that it will put $700 million towards the construction of a Second Range Crossing that will allow traffic on the Gore and Warrego highways to bypass the main street of Toowoomba. This investment builds on the more than $80 million the last Coalition Government spent on preliminary work, land acquisition and the construction of a test tunnel.

James McGrath, who was born in Toowoomba and went to high school here said "Toowoomba seems to have turned from being a city connected by national highways, to a major freight transport route for which the people that live here are a secondary consideration. Toowoomba should be for the people and a proper highway, not a main street, should be for the trucks."

The Queensland Senate team has a big connection to Toowoomba and the surrounds:

• Senator Ian Macdonald, number one on the LNP ticket, was born in Stanthorpe although he now calls north Queensland home. 
• James McGrath, number two on the LNP ticket, was born in Toowoomba and completed high school at Toowoomba State High School. 
• Matthew Canavan, number three on the LNP ticket, lives at Meringandan with his wife and three children. 
• David Goodwin, number four on the LNP ticket, grew up in Toowoomba. 
• Theresa Craig, number five on the ticket, worked at St Andrew's hospital when she first moved to Australia in the 1990s. 

29 July 2013