By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
CASEY commuters will be compromised by the government’s Port of Hastings development, the state’s Shadow Treasurer Tim Pallas has said.
During a visit to the City of Casey last week where he was joined by Narre Warren South MP Judith Graley, Mr Pallas said the Liberals hadn’t given Casey residents a “clear appreciation” of the high amount of construction activity that would occur for the development of the Port of Hastings.
The Shadow Treasurer’s comments come as the State Government last Thursday announced the development of the Port of Hastings had been declared under the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act, a key component in Victorian planning processes introduced by the Brumby government in 2009.
In April the News reported that the City of Casey had backed the government’s plans to develop the Port of Hastings over Labor’s rival Bay West proposal.
“They (State Government) haven’t given people a clear appreciation of what construction activity would have to happen on the roads to make high capacity roads, capable of dealing with what they say will be a container port holding up to 9 million containers,” Mr Pallas said.
“Bear in mind that the Port of Melbourne currently handles about 2.4 million containers.”
Mr Pallas said the Port of Hastings development will require both high capacity roads and freight rail.
“If you’re going to put high capacity rail freight alignments in then, obviously, the capacity to put passenger rail in will be severely compromised,” he said.
“Not only that, all the way through the south-eastern suburbs of metropolitan Melbourne, 24/7, you will have rail freight running through local neighbourhoods, that’s where the rail lines effectively run.”
City of Casey advocacy spokesperson for the Port of Hastings councillor Sam Aziz said the development will create almost 6000 jobs within 20 years.
“It is disappointing that the Labor Party’s position is not supportive of the Port of Hastings, instead suggesting that a new port near Werribee may be the solution for constraints on expansion of the Port of Melbourne,” Cr Aziz said.
“A port near Werribee will not create a single additional job in Casey.”
