Botany Bay and Catchment Alliance

9 October 2007

Media release  Contact: Andrew Macintosh (02) 6162 4146 or 0403 804 540

Shipping’s falling market share is making greenhouse emissions worse: New Report from The Australia Institute (more…)

If you have a spare couple of days and a spare $2300 you too can attend the NSW Transport Infrastructure Summit billed as
Planning and investment for a sustainable future: 1st & 2nd November 2007. Sydney Harbour Marriott, Sydney.

Take a look at the list of speakers below.  Genia McCaffery(representing Local Councils) will be the only ‘rose’ amongst the ‘thorns’ yet again.  If those ‘thorns’ were serious about bottlenecks and congestion they would go in search of a sustainable national vision.  We are not going to get sustainability by overscaling the Sydney freight operation.

$5.8 billion will be spent on transport infrastructure in New South Wales over the next 4 years in a quest to reduce congestion, free bottlenecks and attract investment. (more…)

 Les Kennedy, Sydney Morning Herald
September 5, 2007 By the clock, it was not a serious breach of the Sydney Airport curfew – but a magistrate has put a high price on the cost to residents in interrupted sleep: a record $167,500 fine for the offending airline, Gulf Air. (more…)

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport and Regional Services has been meeting, accepting submissions, conducting site visits and hearings for over 2 years.  The report makes a number of recommendations and included amongst them are recommendations affecting Port Kembla and Port Newcastle:

Committee Assessment:  3.324 : Almost every port appearing in this Inquiry is having difficulties handling that growth. ….3.325: The Committee believes that the infrastructure projects discussed in this chapter are so important to that task that, that they should be assigned a special priority in funding.  The projects identified for NSW are:

• A multi-purpose terminal in Newcastle
• The Maldon-Dombarton rail link
• The removal or reduction of the curfew restrictions at Port Kembla

The full report can be viewed and/or downloaded at:

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/trs/networks/report.htm 

Steve Lewis,National correspondent | The Australian Business August 11, 2007
High-level business support is getting behind the $3 billion-plus inland rail project, with leading retail and transport firms predicting it will slash freight costs and stem grocery price rises.
Federal Labor has so far backed the Government over the rail scheme. But the NSW Government has emerged as a critic, with the state’s Transport Minister John Watkins arguing it would be a waste of money unless it ran through Sydney. (more…)