Botany expansion a `white elephant': community

Botany expansion a `white elephant’: community

A community interest group has called for an immediate stop to Port Botany expansion plans, citing a lack of appropriate road and rail infrastructure, the State Government’s &#8220gross economic mismanagement&#8221 of taxpayer money, and detrimental environmental impact to Botany Bay. Save Botany Beach chairman Garry Brown said there was no need to expand the port as incumbent stevedores’ present upgrade programs would accommodate the increase in container traffic &#8211 without land reclamation, and without the use of New South Wales taxpayer money. &#8220The Iemma Government plans to triple Port Botany’s capacity from the current 1.4m to 3.2 m containers per annum,&#8221 he said. &#8220But in doing so, the Iemma Government intends to commit to spending over $700m of NSW taxpayer’s money to dredge over 7m cu m of Botany Bay to create a 60-ha footprint, before it has secured a contract with a stevedore to develop and operate a third shipping terminal on the footprint. "Imagine a new $700m 60-ha port terminal footprint with no-one to develop and operate it, resulting in no return for NSW taxpayers," he said. The &#8220ill-conceived and arrogant push&#8221 to triple the container capacity would see Sydney strangled, Mr Brown claimed, as there was insufficient road and rail infrastructure to support present containers numbers. &#8220It is a decision which is totally foreign to sound commercial and business practices &#8211 and without a committed stevedore we are looking down the barrel at another white elephant with the NSW taxpayer footing the bill," he said. The Save Botany Beach group was calling on the Government to: &#8226 Maintain and support Port Sydney as a working harbour &#8226 Cap the level of containers processed at Port Botany &#8226 Implement its NSW Ports Growth Plan &#8226 Start developing the port of Newcastle, and &#8226 Utilise the $700m budgeted for the Port Botany expansion, in conjunction with the Federal Government’s $1.7bn AusLink funding to upgrade freight rail lines between Newcastle and Sydney, and Port Kembla and Sydney.

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