Botany Bay and Catchment Alliance

The following is an opinion piece prepared for publication in The Age.  The subject matter is the dredging of Port Phillip Bay but similar could be written about  local processes in regard to the Port Botany Expansion and projects like Desalination. 

BRUMBY BARGES ON

Mr. Brumby has over stepped the mark. The debate about channel deepening is not over Mr. Brumby (Age 23/1) because you have never let it happen. Since first floating to the top around 1999 the channel deepening project has had an armchair ride through open doors, greased and oiled by the Bracks-Brumby machine. Treasury insiders tell us that the Bracks Brumby Batchelor machine was on a mission to ram through channel deepening, regardless of what Treasury had to say. For years words straight from the PoMC’s glossy promotional brochures have appeared like magic on the lips of politicians.

The public has financed $120 million of spin, not science and we are now having it rammed down our throats by the likes of the VFF, who should rather be asking if, as is the case, almost 40% of our export containers are empty, why the hell should they be paying a huge increase in container charges to finance a project which they don’t need? The truth is our primary producers (our biggest exporters) have much more to fear from climate change and drought than they have from shipping channels remaining at their current depth. There are no containers ‘sittin on the dock of the Bay’, and PriceWaterhouse Coopers in its 2007 Economic Analysis of the Port of Melbourne reports that trade through the port will quadruple in 30 years regardless of whether we have channel deepening.  Sadly at the 2007 Inquiry the VFF expressed no concerns at all for their primary producing fishermen colleagues who will suffer a drought in the Bay if channel deepening proceeds.

Whilst there has been plenty of chatter about how much we “need” channel deepening, the silence from government agencies connected with the Bay is deafening.  The EPA, Department of Fisheries, Parks Victoria, Tourism Victoria et al have sat on their hands under the direction of Mr. Brumby. At the 2007 Inquiry EPA staff wrung their hands and deferred to the (scantly qualified) Inquiry members over crucial matters of dredging toxic Yarra sediments and dumping it in the Bay. A firm view was not to be found. Could it be because all those agencies report to the government which is championing the project? A conga line of scientific consultants all paid by government or the PoMC (read taxpayers) amazingly all found that the project was a go-er too.   

Cosy re-arranging of deckchairs recently has not gone unnoticed. EPA chief Mick Bourke has now been appointed “independent auditor” for the project. Ex VECCI CEO and channel deepening champion Neil Coulson is now appointed to the PoMC board. His replacement at the helm of VECCI, Wayne Kayler-Thompson hailed from Tourism Victoria, having been fed a steady diet no doubt of how much Victoria needs deeper channels. He is keeping up the mantra.

Paula Benson, wife federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is another recent PoMC board appointment. Ms Benson is Manager of corporate affairs at Alcoa Australia, which has a chequered history with its workers and surrounding communities just down the coast from the Port of Melbourne. The appointment of Ms. Benson and Mr. Coulson indicates just how hard the Brumby government listens to industry and how deaf it is to the community.

Only after community pressure was channel deepening referred to the Commonwealth in 2002, in order to assess potential impacts on Matters of National Environmental significance. The then Victorian Channel Authority argued that the project need not be referred, and did not require Commonwealth accreditation or approval. In 2004 it nearly went pear shaped for the Three B’s machine when the Independent Panel heard some alarming evidence about the project design, and in 2005 found it should not proceed. Juggernaut back in one piece, in 2007 the project was refrocked.  Compared to when it was first referred to the Federal government in 2002, it is now twenty times bigger, ten times the cost, in more locations and with a toxic dump thrown in. Contrary to the views of PoMC and Mr. Brumby, the Federal Court did not approve the project. In January 2008, the Court noted the litigation did not call for a decision of the environmental or economic merits of the Project and the court confined itself to determining if procedures laid down under the EPBC Act had been followed. Only now that we have Mr. Garrett’s reasons can we have a debate about the merits of the project and the suitability of the PoMC to manage it, either in the courts or in the community.

There is no mandate for channel deepening, and we did not choose Mr. Brumby and his abrasive style as our Premier. Since 1999 channel deepening and its shambling economic justifications has been poked and prodded into life by Mr. Brumby’s government, against the informed will of most Victorians. Mr. Brumby and now the hapless Mr. Garrett are reacting to considerable pressure from a hatful of unseen but powerful entities who care nothing for the lives, livelihoods and amenity of Victorians. Messrs. Garrett and Brumby may feel the force from that faceless sphere now, but it will be to the detriment of both their careers, and they will receive no thanks from their present masters who will move on as soon as it suits.   

Mr. Brumby’s channel deepening juggernaut is on the skids, and to say we have had the debate is simply not true.  

by Jenny Warfe, President Blue Wedges Coalition

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 1138 and is filed under Port Botany Expansion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.