[Peetwo]

All roads & railways lead to Moorebank


A presser off the miniscule's website this AM:

Agreement reached for Sydney freight project at Moorebank

Media Release
WT165/2015
04 June 2015

Joint release with:
Mathias Cormann
Minister for Finance
 
The Government's Moorebank Intermodal Company (MIC) has signed an agreement with the Sydney Intermodal Terminal Alliance (SIMTA) for the development of the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal.

The agreement will see SIMTA develop and operate an intermodal freight terminal and warehousing across both Commonwealth and SIMTA-owned land at Moorebank, with direct rail access to Port Botany via the Southern Sydney Freight Line. Combining the site into a single development optimises the outcomes and minimises taxpayer exposure.
SIMTA is a consortium which represents two of Australia's largest logistics companies, Qube Holdings and Aurizon Holdings.

The facility will include an import-export terminal with ultimate capacity to handle up to 1.05 million containers a year and a separate interstate terminal that will ultimately have capacity for up to 500,000 containers a year.

SIMTA will provide up to $1.5 billion in private investment for the project. Leveraging that significant private sector investment means the Commonwealth's commitment, through MIC, will be limited to around $370 million instead of around $900 million under the previous government's business plan.

This new, major interstate terminal will get more freight off our highways and onto rail, driving significant improvements in national productivity. There will be open access for rail operators and other users of the Moorebank facility to promote competition.

The total economic benefits of the project are estimated at close to $9 billion, including relieving traffic congestion on Sydney's roads, reducing costs to business and better environmental outcomes. 

Over 1,300 jobs will be created during the construction phase, with up to 7,700 jobs created mainly in South-West Sydney once the intermodal terminal precinct is fully developed.

Environmental and planning approvals are being sought for the combined precinct, to address community concerns and minimise any potential adverse impacts on local residents and businesses.

The planning process will require the project to contribute over time to local traffic intersections where the project will add pressure and require environmental offset investment in green corridors around the facility to enhance the biodiversity and ensure conservation of important vegetation.

Subject to the approvals by the Commonwealth and state planning and environment authorities, work on the project will begin this year and the Moorebank intermodal terminal is planned to be operational from late 2017. Further information about the project can be found at: www.micl.com.au.

 MONEY TALKS - Err..."division required??"

Reflecting on the nearly 2 week old presser (above) from the miniscule's office, I note that the member for Hughes made an interesting Federation Chamber Constituency Statement, which he then expanded on in an Adjournment speech yesterday in the H of R...

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (10:57): Last week, there was a great deal of fanfare and hoopla about the announcement between the Moorebank Intermodal Company and the SIMTA Consortium on a financial deal for the proposed Moorebank intermodal terminal. It should be noted that this is not the final go-ahead; it still has to go through all the environmental and planning approvals. During the last week there has been a lot of talk about the premise that this is going ahead which is based on three simple ideas. Firstly, it will take trucks off the road; secondly, it will reduce pollution costs; and, thirdly, it will save costs to the economy. If you do any type of analysis of those three premises, you will find that they are all completely and utterly misguided and mistaken. Firstly, take the concept that it would take trucks off the road. That is a very simplistic idea—that you take the trucks off the road and put them on rail. That seems to be a wonderful solution but that occurs only if you are taking containers and dumping them in a big hole at Moorebank. You have to consider where the containers are actually going and where the goods are actually going.  

When it comes to an analysis of those questions, the Moorebank Intermodal Company put out a map of Sydney showing where the containers go which was simply and utterly misleading. The map creates the false impression that there is a large and existing market for containers in Sydney to go to Moorebank when any further analysis of where the containers go simply shows that that is factually incorrect. The majority of the containers from Port Botany that are distributed around Sydney currently go to three basic areas: they go around the Enfield area, they go to the Eastern Creek area or they go the Wetherill Park area.  

Moorebank as an area for containers currently being delivered to has simply been rejected by the market. Very few containers actually go today from Port Botany to Moorebank. By locating the intermodal terminal at Moorebank, the idea is that the containers would go from Port Botany to Moorebank, be unloaded and then put onto the road and taken out to Wetherill Park or Eastern Creek. This is simply completely illogical. It will not take containers off the road; it simply transfers the starting point from Port Botany and transfers that to Moorebank. Port Botany, yes, there is road congestion there, but there is far greater road congestion in the Moorebank area and in Western Sydney. This is a very bad idea.

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (21:05): I would like to continue from where I was speaking this morning on a few mistaken concepts surrounding the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal. The first is that it takes trucks off the road, the second is that it reduces pollution and the third is that it will save costs—all simplistic, motherhood statements, but when you dig down to the facts they are all completely misguided.

Firstly is the idea that it takes trucks off the road. You need to look at where the containers actually go in Sydney and you also need to look at where the goods from those containers go to work out that this will not take trucks off the road. It will simply relocate the starting point for those containers from Port Botany out to Moorebank.

The goods still have to get on the road and there are two ways that can happen. Firstly, the containers will be transported and relocated from the site. Rather than currently, where a container goes directly by truck from Port Botany to, say, Eastern Creek or to the Wetherill Park area, where most of the containers go in Sydney, the idea is that it will actually go on a train all the way around to Moorebank. It will then be unloaded from the train, put on a stack and then put on another truck and trucked from Moorebank up to Wetherill Park or Eastern Creek. This does not take trucks off the road; it puts trucks on the road. It increases the congestion in Western Sydney.

The other possibility is that the containers are actually unpacked on site and distributed from Moorebank. Again, that fails to take trucks off the road because Moorebank is too far away from the demographic centre of Sydney. The demographic centre of Sydney is around the Parramatta area. If you look, that demographic centre actually becomes a proxy for where the centre of distribution of goods will be. This is why we see the majority of the containers going into Eastern Creek, or going into the Wetherill Park area, because they are the closest major industrial areas to the demographic heart of Sydney. Instead of distributing those goods from a warehouse in those areas, if you move your distribution point down to Moorebank, your smaller trucks have more miles of Sydney to cover than they otherwise would. By all accounts, the idea that it takes trucks off the road is simply and completely mistaken.

The second failed concept is that this somehow reduces pollution in Western Sydney. It is true that if you move goods on rail, as compared to road, you use less diesel fuel. In fact, using the proponents' own numbers, you use half the diesel fuel. So, yes, it is true that with just the container movement compared to road movement, you will reduce carbon dioxide emissions—that clear, odourless, harmless gas that makes the plants grow. The real dangerous air pollution is fine and coarse particulate matter that causes lung cancer, heart disease and childhood asthma, and kills thousands of people in Sydney every single year. By taking a container off a truck and putting it on these old locomotives, these 40- and 50-year old locomotives, without any pollution controls actually increases the pollution almost tenfold. It does not double it. It does not triple it. It is almost a tenfold increase in particulate matter pollution for moving that container into Western Sydney.

The third failed logical idea of this is that it will save costs. An intermodal concept of shuffling goods out to Western Sydney is simply a case of double-handling. You have a second lift. You have to lift at the port and you also have a lift at the intermodal. We also have the costs. Moorebank is located almost on an island around the Georges River. For this project to have any hope of working—for the containers to have any hope at all of getting out of that side of Moorebank—we need almost a $750 million upgrade to access the M5. The current bridge across the M5 takes 120,000 cars a day. Compare that to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which takes 160,000. Can you imagine fully laden semitrailers trying to merge into traffic on the Harbour Bridge and then merge across lanes? This is the insanity that they are trying to do at Moorebank. Without that $150 million, at least, upgrade the terminal will simply not work; it will be a white elephant.

And there is the opportunity cost. This money should be invested for the benefit of the nation either at Badgerys Creek, where the airport is, or out at Eastern Creek.

   

For an insight on the subject of suspect & dodgy political donations - especially from property developers - it is worth watching this segment from the other Aunty's 7:30 Report last week: MONEY MAN

It is also worth remembering that Farmer Truss has a strong friendship & party association with certain political donors that could be regarded as suspect by certain sections of the commentariat :

Senator Xenophon queries political donations by regional airline Rex  

• by: ANTHONY KLAN
  
• From: The Australian
  
• January 21, 2015 12:00AM
  

INDEPENDENT senator Nick Xenophon has called large political donations by listed regional airline Rex “incredibly baffling” and said he would be buying shares in the company so he could press board members on why the donations were made.  

Mr Xenophon, who led a Senate committee inquiry into much criticised government investigation into the crash of a Rex-owned passenger plane off Norfolk Island, said the airline had an “obligation” to disclose why the donations were made.

Between July and November 2012 — amid a three-year inquiry into the Norfolk Island crash — Rex made a $250,000 donation to the ALP, $95,700 to the federal Nationals and $40,000 to the Liberal Party. This made the small airline one of the biggest political donors in the country.

“Rex is a public company and it had an obligation to explain whether even one (word) regarding the crash was spoken with any of the political parties,” Mr Xenophon told The Australian.

“This largesse to political parties is inexplicably baffling and I will be buying some shares in Rex and asking them to explain it.”

Rex spokeswoman Alicia Chapple has declined to respond to repeated questions from The Australian this week regarding the donations and other matters, saying that the airline did “not see the need to devote additional resources to this matter”.

The airline had earlier incorrectly claimed it had made no donations to the LNP; however, when shown otherwise, Ms Chapple said the airline had meant it had made no donations to the Queensland LNP.

Of particular interest was Rex’s $250,000 donation to the federal ALP given the airline was a highly vocal critic of the Labor government.

In 2013 Rex publicly said the ALP was “hellbent” on destroying regional aviation and “along with it pretty much the rest of the economy”.

Mr Xenophon said it appeared to defy reason why Rex would donate heavily to a government it would shortly afterwards describe as “destroying its industry”.
“Perhaps Rex had a case of Stockholm syndrome?” he said.

In 2009 a Rex aeroplane — operated under the group’s Pel-Air brand — ditched into the ocean with six passengers on board, badly injuring one.
A lengthy Australian Transport Safety Board investigation blamed the Pel-Air pilot involved in the crash but failed to mention 57 breaches or “serious deficiencies” at Pel-Air.

Mr Xenophon headed a Senate committee inquiry into that botched investigation, which led to the federal government last month calling on the ATSB to reopen the investigation.
Rex has also come under the spotlight after it was last year awarded a series of key Queensland government contracts which had previously been held by Cairns-based rival Skytrans.

   
One day all this could be yours...



MTF...P2