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. (more…)

IPART will be finalising its recommendations over the coming months.  Responses to the Draft recommendations can be read at www.ipart.nsw.gov.au (click on Other Industries).  IPART is yet to address the issue of empty containers and the need to increase Customs and AQIS examinations.  It recommends that the State Government ask for Auslink funding to fix homegrown rail freight problems at the expense of funding for a national project such as the Inland Rail from Gladstone through Parkes to Melbourne.

IPART, the RTA, Sydney Ports and others recommend the introduction(beyond the trial) of Super B Doubles onto our roads.  The Port is not in a Greenfield site - it is surrounded by some of Australia’s oldest suburbs and it is inappropriate to be introducing these monsters (with BTriples to follow) when individuals are downsizing to bicycles and smaller vehicles.

The latest issue of Environmentally Speaking from Botany Bay Explorers: click here - enviro-speaking-14.doc

Timing is all. Yesterday while Kevin Rudd was announcing his new cabinet, the Premier of NSW took the opportunity to ‘advise’ NSW taxpayers that the expansion of Port Botany would be costing them $1 billion not the $500 million announced 6 months earlier, or the $240million 3 years earlier. If taxpayers get out of this one at 10 times the original estimate they can probably count themselves lucky. Luck is what the government is counting on to attract a third stevedore as well. Yesterday’s announcement of the award of the tender to Baulderstone Hornibrook and Jan de Nul also gave the government the opportunity to slip in another piece of ‘advice’. This expansion apparently will double the current capacity of the port. Transport carriers, in submissions to IPART, have argued that the Port is operating well below capacity; both stevedores at the Commission of Inquiry said that on the current footprint they could move in excess of 4 million containers. Even at the approved capacity levels of 1.3 million for each terminal, that brings us to an overall capacity around 5.2 million.

The Environmental Impact Statement for the Port was based on a capacity of 3.2million. The Minister’s approval was based on 3.2 million so why now talk of 5 million plus when under the NSW Ports Growth Plan Newcastle becomes the next container port after Port Botany reaches 3.2 million.

Click to see: Map of Dredging area and other developments in Botany Bay.pdf

Read Media Releases of 31/5/07 where the Port costs $500 million31/5/07 Port announcement and 29/11/07 where it now costs $1 billion and capacity has increased from 3.2million to 5.2 million containers. Expansion 29/11/07

Don’t expect any analysis of this project from the Sydney(CBD) Morning Herald. Below is what appeared in The Age: Misleading quotes from Iemma commenting on the needs of farmers even though his Transport Minister is on record as saying that Federal money should be spent in Sydney in preference to building the Inland Rail through Parkes and other Regional Centres. (more…)

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, psychologist Steve Biddulph paints a stark picture of the future and predicts that ‘business as usual’ political parties like the Liberals will decrease in popularity as we brace for the unique challenges ahead.  While he is confident that Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have the values required for these tough times the same does not  apply to all politicians who carry the Labour label.  Biddulph need look no further than a swag of Labour cabinet ministers in NSW who support fast tracking unsustainable developments and place their faith in their god ‘the market’. 

“The issue of the future, coming down on us now like a steam train, is of course the environment, the double hammer blows of climate change and peak oil.”  says Biddulph.  “Energy, weather and human misery are the factors that will define our lives for decades to come. You can cancel your newspaper, those are the only four words you need to know………the subplot in economist circles, was that this election was one to lose. That whoever inherited Australia in 2007 inherited a coming economic collapse in globalised trade that would suck Australia and much of the rest of the world down with it. “……………………….full article… (more…)

Each International Buy Nothing Day since 2002 we have attempted  raising awareness of the link between the expansion of Port Botany and the growth in imports and the loss of most of Penrhyn Estuary and Botany Beach under the Port expansion.  The first attempt scored a reference in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald and a short clip on the SBS news.  This year we handed out thousands of flyers and sent off press releases but unfortunately could not compete with an election as well as rain.   But we did get positive responses from people at the Walk Against Warming march;  most of those were unaware of the recreational and bird habitat significance of the area. 

A few of us did show up on Saturday morning to greet a dozen or more cormorants sitting on Penrhyn jetty.  On either side of the pathway to the jetty A4 laminated posters were nailed to wooden posts.  The posters were headed Botany Bay and Catchment Alliance and the content was critical of BBACA.   

We don’t know who went to the trouble of composing this, laminating copies and nailing them to posts around Penrhyn but it was obviously someone who watches our website,  is adequately resourced to make up the posters and confident enough to nail them to Maritime/Sydney Ports property at Penrhyn. (more…)

Residents around the Port Botany area have been crying out about the dangers of parked trailers/skels on Foreshore Road and now we have yet another death.

P-plater dies in car inferno. By Kara Lawrence DAILY TELEGRAPH November 19, 2007 12:00am

A TEEN P-plater is believed to have died instantly when his car crashed into a trailer parked on the road- side and burst into flames near Port Botany early yesterday. (more…)

Freight about to crash 4/2/07 - ABC Background Briefing

As consumers demand more and more ’stuff’ the impact on the freight industry will be enormous. The number of trucks on the roads will double in two decades. This will have important implications for traffic, roads, pollution, and energy use.  Steve Skinner reports.

THEME

Stephen Skinner: Welcome to Background Briefing on ABC Radio National, I’m Stephen Skinner. And today we’re talking about freight, and lots of it, billions of tonnes moving around the country every year. (more…)

It will be a long hot summer with plenty of opportunities to take the kids fishing. If you bring back the catch to the Penrhyn Boat Ramp there will be a bench for cleaning the fish - but no water.  “No worries”, you say and head down to Penrhyn waters to clean the fish.  The kids play around in the water while you clean the fish.  Then you notice the large red WARNING sign which tells you that the estuary is contaminated and advises you not to come in contact with the water (swimming/wading).  So why you ask yourself have the taps at the cleaning bench been cut off.  Good question.  Sydney Ports Corporation have control of this area and eventually will convert it into another shipping container terminal.  But in the meantime what about exercising some common sense and put back the water.

 Welcome to the future of container shipping.  The next assault on Botany Bay will come with the dredging of the shipping channel to allow the mega container ships entry.  The biggest at present is the Danish Emma Maersk which can carry 11,000 - 14,000 TEUs, 397 metres long, cruises at 27knots and only needs a crew of 13. ……and a draught of 30 metres.  Built to load up mana from China for delivery in Europe.