Victorian Ports Minister dismisses opposition claims it is still considering Bay West as an option for Victoria’s second container port
By Anna Game-Lopata | February 14, 2012
Victorian Ports Minister Dr Dennis Napthine has dismissed opposition claims it is still considering Bay West as an option for Victoria’s second container port.
Opposition ports spokesperson Tim Pallas says documents obtained Freedom of Information (FOI) reveal the Department of Transport is investigating an alternative near Werribee, on the other side of Port Phillip Bay for Victoria’s next major port.
“These FOI documents show the Department of Transport has retained a consultant to advise it of which option is preferred, a port at Hastings or Bay West option,” Pallas claims.
“Dr Napthine would have you believe Bay West is at least 50 years away and after Hastings is developed as a container port, but the Minister’s own department seem to have other ideas as do his parliamentary colleagues.
But speaking from Flemington Racecourse today, a spokesperson for Dr Napthine refutes the accusation.
He says the government has never deviated from its plan to “fast track” Hastings Port as a priority.
The spokesperson says the document the opposition is referring to, the Metropolitan Planning Strategy Discussion Paper is publically available on the internet.
“If you read the paper properly, it’s clear Hastings Port is on the agenda to be developed first while Bay West will be considered as the natural third option catering for container freight in the next fifty years,” he says.
The Victorian government earlier in the year dismissed opposition calls for a cost-benefit analysis of a Bay West development over the Port of Hastings.
Ports Minister Dennis Napthine has always maintained Hastings is the best location for a second major port.
“The area has an abundance of land that was specially zoned for future port development way back during the time of the Bolte Government,” Napthine told SupplyChain Review in June.
“Aside from the land, Hastings is already a commercial operating port. It is a natural deep water port with a certified depth greater than 14m so it can accommodate the next generation of container ships to trade with Australia.
“By comparison Bay West would
require significant dredging and development to reach the same capacity.”
While Victoria’s existing ports such as Geelong and Portland are based in the west, Hastings is strategically located near Melbourne’s rapidly expanding south eastern suburbs.
“Large eastern shopping complexes such as Chadstone generate a lot of demand for containerised goods,” Napthine says.
But Pallas says the Baillieu Government will waste nearly $20 billion building two
Victorian ports as well as upgrading the Port of Melbourne, when it could save taxpayers more than $10 billion by building one that could serve the state for several decades.
“The Baillieu Government’s current plan is to ignore industry specialists, departmental advice and common sense and plough ahead on a multi-billion spending spree for a port which will cost business, the consumer and taxpayers more,” Pallas says.
He says the documents Labor obtained show the
Department of Tramsport has hired consulting firm GHD to study locations between Werribee and Point Cook.
While the briefing
reveals the plan to accelerate the Hastings option as the location to handle international containers, other potential sites west of Melbourne will also be investigated ”to ensure rigorous options assessment has been undertaken”.
”The Department of Transport is seeking to engage a suitably qualified consultant to conduct a high-level options assessment … to identify the most likely feasible location for the development of a port to service Victoria’s long-term container demand in the west of Port Phillip Bay,” the tender document says.
Pallas says continued investigation into the benefits of both Hastings and Bay West options is a course of action supported by the state opposition and Victoria’s freight and logistics industry.
Former Victorian Freight and Logistics Council CEO Rose Elphick confirms her now defunct organisation
did not specifically support either of the two options.
“I said any port decision needs to look at the whole supply chain cost, and landside costs tend to be the greatest,” Elphick says.
“This was taken as a vote of support for the Bay West option over the Port of Hastings, which it wasn’t. We need to look carefully at all the options.”
The Property Council of Australia concurs, pointing out its position is that all the issues, including cost and efficiency must be taken into consideration before a decision be made about where the second container port should be.
“We are still in the process of working through the issues, including transport access, congestion and jobs,” a spokesperson says.