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One of Brisbane’s most dangerous stretches of road is set to get a new two-way bike path and upgraded footpaths, with the council revealing its preferred design.

Sylvan Road in Toowong is a 1.2-kilometre missing link between the popular off-road Bicentennial and Western Freeway bikeways, and it’s been named the state’s most unsafe spot to ride.

Cyclists are forced to contend with busy traffic, narrow gaps next to parked or double-parked cars, and slip lanes.

Once the bikeway is completed, people will be able to ride from Darra to the CBD entirely on safe infrastructure, protected from cars.

After community consultation in June seeking opinions on two designs for a separated bikeway, Brisbane City Council will on Wednesday reveal the preferred design, including a dedicated two-way bikeway separated from traffic.

The council said feedback helped confirm the preferred design, with safer crossings and better separation from traffic identified as the biggest priorities.

Plans for a continuous bidirectional bikeway – one of two options published for consultation in May – showed the protected cycle path would connect to the shared path on Milton Road.

Sylvan Road between Bates Lane and Croydon Street/Jephson Street would become one-way – eastbound only – with the rest of the road retaining two-way traffic.

On-street parking would be retained in some locations, but removed between Croydon Street/ Jephson Street and Coronation Drive, according to the version of the plan released for feedback in May.

The speed limit would be reduced to 40km/h between Milton Road and Croydon Street/Jephson Street.

The footpaths would be widened along Sylvan Road, with more room for greenery and other elements to make the area more pleasant for pedestrians.

A zebra crossing would be installed in the left-turn slip lane from Milton Road onto Croydon Street, with new raised priority pedestrian and bikeway crossings.

The outbound bus stop 13 on Milton Road at Morley Street would also be improved.

The final design will be released later this year and construction of the bikeway is expected to start in mid-2027.

Upgrades to the Milton Road, Croydon Street and Morley Street intersection have already begun and are due to be finished early next year, weather permitting.

The project is jointly funded by the federal and state governments and Brisbane City Council.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said once completed, it would become the key cycling route between the city and Brisbane’s western suburbs.

Councillor Penny Wolff said residents told the council they wanted a safer way to travel through Toowong.

“It’s great to see those ideas reflected in the preferred design,” she said.

“Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts on how we can make this design even better.”

Brisbane West Bicycle User Group co-convenor Chris Cox said it was delighted that the final concept design had been selected.

“We know that physical separation from motor vehicle traffic is the biggest factor that gives confidence to people of all ages and abilities to get on their bikes,” he said.

“This will be a game changer for local families who want more transport choices to get around their neighbourhood, as well as commuters, students and recreational riders travelling through the area.”

Just 5 per cent of cyclists riding on Sylvan Road were women, according to a manual count done for the council in 2024.

Bicycle Queensland chief executive Dr Matthew Burke said the organisation had been advocating for the Sylvan Road bikeway for at least 25 years.

“It’s one of the most-used bicycle routes into the city,” he said.

From 2002 to 2023, there were 43 crashes involving cyclists on Sylvan Road. Nineteen were admitted to hospital.

The project is due to be completed in 2028.

Queensland Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie attended the recent national swimming championships as a guest of Australia’s richest woman, and has emerged as the Crisafulli LNP’s key conduit to the billionaire conservative political and sporting patron.

The appearance of the pair at the Gold Coast event raised eyebrows in April, but was only vaguely disclosed in Bleijie’s official diary. This masthead can reveal the businesswoman’s own websites state Bleijie was there as a member of Gina Rinehart’s “party”.

Analysis of ministerial diaries also shows Bleijie has met with Rinehart on another two occasions since the October 2024 election – and is the only minister to have done so. Details are limited, and a Right to Information request found no related documents.

This new insight into the mining magnate’s dealings with the most senior conservative government in the country comes amid a well-publicised break in her backing for the federal Coalition in favour of Pauline Hanson’s Queensland-based One Nation.

It also follows this masthead’s revelation through RTI laws of the Rowing Australia patron’s personal letter to Bleijie lobbying for the controversial choice of Rockhampton to host 2032 Olympic rowing – against the government’s independent venue review.

Both Rinehart and Bleijie have refused to answer questions about whether any similar approaches were made in support of a second departure from that advice, to pursue the new National Aquatic Centre within the Victoria Park precinct.

Sunshine Coast-based Bleijie sits on the right of the state LNP party room, with significant sway in cabinet and control of the key state development, infrastructure and planning portfolios and their associated project fast-track and approval powers.

Perth-based Rinehart, who also owns properties in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast, has significant business interests in Queensland through Hancock subsidiary Queensland Coal Investments (QCI), which is said to be focused on exploration in the state.

Her agricultural interests in Queensland include beef producer S. Kidman & Co and premium wagyu beef operation 2GR. The former is the sole Rinehart company to have made a political donation to state politics – with $1300 to the LNP back in 2018.

More recently, The Courier Mail noted the duo appeared together at the 2026 Australian Open swimming championships in April, with little additional detail.

Bleijie’s subsequent ministerial diary entry for the April 7 engagement describes its purpose as “ministerial and portfolio matters”, but does not mention Rinehart – a Swimming Queensland patron and national squad supporter – by name.

Instead, it lists others present as “invited guests, industry stakeholders, [and] local community members”, along with ministerial staff.

Websites associated with the Hancock Prospecting executive chair shed further light. There, Bleijie is listed as one of “her party”, along with LNP Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate and his wife.

In response to a series of questions from this masthead, a spokesperson from Bleijie’s office said the deputy premier had attended the event “by invitation of Swimming Australia”.

“Contrary to Labor’s conspiracy theories, the deputy premier sat on the public balcony with 100 other people watching the amazing swimmers,” the spokesperson said.

But this was also not the only occasion Rinehart had been present at a meeting recorded by Bleijie, who is required to disclose all engagements beyond those deemed sensitive or related to electorate, party-political, personal or media matters.

Analysis by this masthead of all publicly available Crisafulli cabinet diaries shows Bleijie is the only minister to have met Rinehart since the 2024 election.

The first of Bleijie’s listed meetings, on October 23 last year, named Rinehart, QCI general manager Dave Davies, and former Country Liberal Party Northern Territory chief minister turned Hancock Agriculture chief executive and One Nation donor Adam Giles, as attendees.A second meeting, with just Rinehart, Bleijie, and his ministerial staff, took place on January 7. The purpose for both was also listed only as “ministerial and portfolio related matters”.

The only other disclosed meetings with Rinehart or an associate by a government figure are two meetings Davies held with Resources Minister Dale Last’s chief of staff, Ally Foley, in December last year, and again in March.

Last has made it clear that his message to industry is “I’ll sign, you drill”. While March’s meeting involved ministerial staff only, December’s was also attended by Natural Resources Department director-general Graham Fraine and his staff.

This masthead has asked Bleijie whether his meetings related to recent public comments by Rinehart at a Hancock Prospecting-sponsored News Corp “Bush Summit” in Townsville supporting the provision of nearby land to microchip manufacturers, Israeli defence firms, Elon Musk’s SpaceX – in which she owns shares – or a controversial “critical minerals” bill introduced by the deputy premier.

While specific, attributable responses to such questions have not been provided by either of the pair, this masthead has been told none of those subjects had been broached.

“Queensland is open for business again after Labor’s decade of decline and the Crisafulli government will meet with anyone who is interested in investing in the state,” Bleijie said in a statement provided after one series of such questions in June.

A recent RTI request to Bleijie’s office returned no documents associated with either the October or January meeting. Questions to Bleijie about the reason for this remain unanswered.

In a lengthy response to some of this masthead’s questions, a Hancock Prospecting spokesperson declined to detail the nature of Rinehart’s meetings with Bleijie, but praised any effort to “reduce roadblocks” for critical mineral projects.

The Queensland government went against the advice of its own Olympic venue review with a controversial decision to host rowing in Rockhampton after intervention from Australia’s richest person and conservative political patron Gina Rinehart.

A letter obtained by this masthead under Right to Information laws reveals Rinehart personally wrote to Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie after the proposal came to her attention, extolling the virtues of the pitch across 283 words.

“I hope that the Queensland government can well consider the Rockhampton proposal, and I wish you all the best in planning the best Olympic Games,” the billionaire businesswoman wrote on Hancock Prospecting letterhead.

This masthead sought access to the letter via Bleijie’s office last month.

Within hours of a decision to grant full access to it on Wednesday afternoon, and questions from this masthead about when the undated letter was sent to Bleijie, the document appeared in News Corp reporting.

While Bleijie’s office has not responded, News Corp reported the letter came before the government’s March 2025 announcement and “soon after the idea to host it in Rockhampton was floated by Queensland Nationals Senator Matt Canavan”.

The letter from Rinehart, who is a patron of Rowing Australia, notes the proposal had “come to my attention” and that the Fitzroy River often hosts Australian team training and annually hosts the Queensland state school championships.

“This rowing facility is world class and is already close to major infrastructure, so it offers the potential to save taxpayer money,” she wrote.

“Hosting a marquee Olympic event like rowing at Australia’s ‘Beef Capital’ in Rockhampton would enable Queensland to tell the iconic Australian story of our pastoralists and farmers, terrific Aussies.

“As you would know too, Rockhampton has also always been a major mining town, the nearby Mt Morgan mine was once the biggest gold mine in the world. I am told that metals from this mine will produce the gold, silver, and bronze medals for the Olympics!

“To marry showing where the Olympic medals come from and having Olympic events nearby sounds to me like a beautiful extra!”

Rinehart also noted the “obvious plus” of showcasing more of the state beyond Brisbane, dispersing crowds and infrastructure stress in the capital, and enabling visitors to “take home with them warm positive memories of the friendly country people of rural Queensland”.

The letter is signed “with warm personal regards”.

The state government released the 100-day Games Independent Infrastructure Coordination Authority review, along with its response in the form of a Games venue plan, on March 25.

Rinehart’s approach sheds further light on the mining magnate’s efforts to wield her status within conservative politics, after emerging as the major benefactor of Queensland-based Senator Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party.

Bleijie sits on the right of the state LNP party room, with significant sway in cabinet and control of the powerful state development, infrastructure and planning portfolios, which are at the forefront of the government’s Games venue decision-making.

The Crisafulli LNP’s decision to pursue rowing on the central Queensland city’s Fitzroy River has sparked swift and sustained backlash over the fitness of that site for global competition, including from Rowing Australia, of which Rinehart is a patron.

Instead, GIICA’s 100-day review of venues recommended rowing be held at the site of the Sydney 2000 Olympic competition in Penrith.

Bruz intensifies, STOOOOGE.

Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie has purged all union figures from two key Queensland government boards, in an act the labour movement says undermines the integrity of the bodies as the LNP embarks on reviews of workplace laws.

Bleijie announced overhauls of the state’s Work Health and Safety and WorkCover boards at 6pm on Friday, with new paid appointments including LNP stalwart Lawrence Springborg and Stafford byelection candidate Fiona Hammond.

What Bleijie did not announce was that six representatives from state unions had been removed from their roles, and no new union leaders had been added.

Queensland Council of Unions general secretary Jacqueline King said Bleijie’s move disregarded the independent worker voices on the statutory bodies that union representatives had provided “for generations”.

“Queensland workers should have zero confidence that these reviews will be conducted fairly or independently when the deputy premier has deliberately removed every representative of Queensland’s registered trade unions from the very bodies established to advise government on workplace safety and workers’ compensation,” King told this masthead in a statement.

“Silencing the voice of workers while expanding the influence of employer representatives fundamentally undermines the integrity of these advisory bodies.

“At the very time workers need a strong, independent voice at the table, the deputy premier has chosen to shut that voice out.”

Bleijie’s move follows a campaign launched by unions in April accusing the Crisafulli LNP of using a review of safety codes, along with one into the state’s broader industrial relations and workers compensation laws, to wind back workplace protections.

Even the former Newman LNP government, of which Bleijie was a member, appointed a union leader to the WorkCover Board – then police union president Ian Leavers.

Bleijie, in a statement to this masthead, described King’s idea of independence as “laughable”, given former Labor ministers Linda Lavarch and Anthony Lynham chaired the Work Health and Safety and WorkCover boards, respectively, under the former government.

“Her definition of independence is, as long as their Labor mates are in charge, all is well,” Bleijie said, adding that workers were “well represented on the Work Health and Safety Board”, to which Labor had also appointed CFMEU figure Kurt Pauls.

“The Crisafulli government is ensuring Queensland workers have adequate protections and fair conditions in their employment. Workers should be safe at their workplace and paid competitively.”

The union figures removed from the nine-person WorkCover Board were Australian Workers’ Union state secretary Stacey Schinnerl and Queensland Teachers’ Union president Cresta Richardson.

In a statement to this masthead, Schinnerl said the lack of union figures on the boards, which administer the state’s workers compensation scheme and advise government on health and safety matters, was disappointing.

She said removing respected union representatives risked undermining the principle that workers should have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting them, and risked “weakening confidence that the interests of working people are being properly represented”.

Schinnerl and King are the two union leaders to have so far given evidence critical of the CFMEU to the government-commissioned inquiry into the construction union and wider sector.

Outside WorkCover chair Chloe Kopilovic – also a Bleijie appointment and a director at the same law firm as Glenn Ferguson, one of the government’s reviewers – and deputy chair Greg Hallam, all board members’ terms were due for expiry or reappointment on June 30.

The previous Work Health and Safety Board was chaired by former LNP Burleigh MP Michael Hart, who was appointed to the role after not contesting the 2024 election. That 14-person board has now been halved, with four union figures removed and none appointed.

These included acting teachers’ union general secretary Brendan Crotty, AWU assistant secretary Mark Raguse, Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union state secretary Rohan Webb, and Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union secretary Sarah Beaman.

In a statement, Beaman said: “The announcement is not only disappointing and misguided, it continues the deputy premier’s anti-worker and anti-registered trade union agenda.”

Split evenly along employer and worker representative lines, new additions to that board’s three “worker representative members” include beef producer Australian Country Choice’s chief people and compliance officer, Tracie Deegan.

Abby Sommer, a director at Sommer Partners after a 15-year stint with major contractor John Holland, also joins an earlier appointee, Red Union Group managing director Jack McGuire.

New additions to the employer side include 4 Ingredients founder Kim McCosker.

The entire Work Health and Safety Board’s membership was not due for expiry or reappointment until September 12. This masthead is not suggesting any appointees are not qualified or suitable for the roles.

An army of foreign influencers supporting Pauline Hanson on social media could be the first example of Indonesian “buzzers” being deployed on Australian politics.

In the past seven months, new Facebook groups supporting Hanson have been popping up – controlled out of Indonesia, but with a rapidly growing number of Australian followers.

One group has 117,000 members, with all three administrators based in Indonesia and dozens of posts daily supporting One Nation.

Some of the content targets Muslims, despite being posted by Indonesian accounts, often with a profile picture of a woman wearing an Islamic headscarf.

One such poster, named Yeti Marati, has posts calling for mosques to be closed down in Australia.
Another of her posts claims “Muslims won’t come to Australia if One Nation wins power”, generating many comments in support.

ANU researcher Ross Tapsell believes it could be the first time Indonesian “buzzers” – or election influencers – have been used to impact Australian politics.

“There is this underground, hidden industry – it’s an influence operations industry,” said Tapsell, who has spent the past decade researching disinformation in south-east Asia.

“A ‘buzzer’ is an organised digital labourer who is generally posting content on social media for some form of financial gain.”

Buzzer teams are available for hire, deploying social media accounts they have been crafting for years. But it can be a controversial occupation: last year, one buzzer was arrested for impeding an Indonesian corruption investigation.

“Their job is to just continue to post what is given to them,” Tapsell said.

“It’s very top-down, and they’re at the bottom of the rung. They often don’t meet their employers.”

A Current Affair messaged about 25 Indonesian Facebook accounts supporting One Nation and failed to receive a single reply. One account removed a video that had been questioned.

“Sometimes one person might be managing 15 different Facebook pages, and they would be putting out the same content on [each of them],” Tapsell said.

One Indonesian post viewed by A Current Affair accidentally included the instructions they were given to “ask your audience this question”.

The pro-One Nation content from Indonesia flooding Australian feeds appears to be highly co-ordinated, with identical images repeated across multiple accounts.

Tapsell said they were clearly not doing it because they were interested in One Nation, but rather for “financial purposes”.

“Because it is so cheap, and because it is so readily available, and it’s now a big booming industry, I think it was always inevitable that it was going to now be part of Australian political and online life,” he said.

One Nation has admitted to outsourcing virtual assistants for its candidates to the Philippines, but a spokesperson said it has nothing to do with this social media surge from Indonesia.

“We are not involved with any of it. We are not in any way responsible for it. We consider it to be deliberate foreign interference in Australian politics,” the spokesperson said.

“These accounts operate in foreign countries, over which we have zero jurisdiction. It is properly the responsibility of the minister for foreign affairs to raise this matter with the governments of these countries.”

Pollster Tony Barry from RedBridge Group, who witnessed One Nation pick up close to 3 million extra voters in poll numbers this year, said whoever was behind it, it seemed to be working.

“That is a real turbocharging of their vote in just six months,” Barry said. “Based on our research, there’s something not quite organic which is turbocharging that vote.”

A north Queensland MP’s seat will be abolished for a third time, while a Labor leadership contender’s electorate will, on paper, flip to the LNP in an electoral map redraw the opposition has labelled “corrupted” by the Crisafulli government.

Independent analysis of the first redistribution since 2017 has confirmed seat boundary changes, subtractions and additions will leave the LNP better off by two seats, based on 2024 election results, with Labor and Katter’s Australian Party losing one each.

Despite Premier David Crisafulli suggesting both new seats in the fast-growing south-east were in “Labor heartland”, one in Caboolture will be notionally LNP. Labor’s Gold Coast enclave of Gaven, held by shadow attorney-general Meaghan Scanlon, will also flip blue.

And KAP MP Shane Knuth, a former LNP and Nationals member for Dalrymple and Charters Towers, will now need to navigate his seat being scrapped in a redistribution for a third time, after the Queensland Redistribution Commission agreed with an LNP suggestion to abolish the electorate of Hill.

“The QRC has made a shocking decision that weakens north Queensland’s voice in parliament and sends yet another seat to south-east Queensland,” Knuth said.

“The LNP could have legislated to increase the number of seats in parliament. That would have accommodated south-east Queensland’s population growth without robbing north Queensland of one of its valuable parliamentary voices.”

A second new seat, Springfield, will absorb some of the rapid population growth around Ipswich. On paper, it will likely be held by Labor after the 2028 election, during which the new electoral map will be used.

While the number of seats is up to parliament to legislate, the commission’s final report, published on Monday after a year-long consultation process, noted such changes were likely to be needed in the “not too distant future” to avoid the loss of one of the state’s four sprawling regional seats.

KAP leader Robbie Katter said the LNP had influenced the commission to abolish one of his party’s two seats and shift boundaries to benefit Resources Minister Dale Last, while making his own expansive seat of Flinders (formerly Traeger) even larger.

The commission is made up of State Development director-general John Sosso, Electoral Commissioner Pat Vidgen, and former judge Gregory Koppenol as chair. Sosso’s selection by the government has riled the Labor opposition, and others.

Tony Fitzgerald, who led the landmark Fitzgerald inquiry in the late 1980s, warned last year of a return to the “bad old days” of “biased electoral boundaries” after Sosso’s appointment. The LNP has defended his selection.

On Monday, Opposition Leader Steven Miles accused the government of having “corrupted” the process with a “very partisan commissioner” that meant the boundaries set out this week will “forever be questioned”.

Miles said Scanlon was an important member of the Labor team, which would work through the implications for her regarding the 2028 election.

Election analyst Ben Raue, writing in his blog, The Tally Room, on Monday, questioned the commission’s explanation of which seats were, in fact, new or abolished around Ipswich and Brisbane’s south.

But Raue confirmed the new seat around Ipswich was notionally Labor, and the seat of Caboolture notionally LNP – as was Scanlon’s seat of Gaven based on boundary changes.

Writing in his blog, The Poll Bludger, of the earlier draft redistribution, analyst William Bowe’s estimated the two-party-preferred result in Macalister suggested the redrawn seat – to be renamed Beenleigh and held by Labor’s Melissa McMahon – could also fall to the LNP by a margin of 0.4 per cent.

Raue’s estimate has McMahon’s margin trimmed from 1.9 per cent to 0.7 per cent.

On Tuesday morning, Crisafulli repeated suggestions that both new seats were in “Labor Party heartland”.

Asked on Monday if he felt the redrawn electoral map would help or hurt the LNP, he said the decision was made by the independent commission.

“Ultimately, what we have to do is, whatever the boundaries look like, we have to go to the people of Queensland and say this is what we spoke to you about before the last election, this is how we have sought to address those issues, this is our vision for the future,” he said.

“And who draws up those boundaries, and where … people fall on one side of the line. I don’t think many Queenslanders will be focused on that.”

Asked whether the government would consider the commission’s suggestions, including an expansion of the number of MPs in parliament, a spokesperson for Attorney-General Deb Frecklington said its focus was on “delivering more police, not more politicians”.