Holding their breath for gas

By Melissa Meehan
With $50 million for the Kooweerup Bypass ticked off in yesterday’s State Budget, the township committee has sparked up the campaign for gas.
The committee has been working on bringing gas to the swamp for more than nine years.
“We know there is a lot of talk about the bypass,” president Frank Crameri said.
“But gas is what we really want. And with all the support from the Liberals while they were in Opposition, especially Ken Smith, we’re fairly confident we will get it.”
Committee member Ray Brown said it was a proven fact that bringing gas to the town would be a viable solution to rising electricity costs – especially in the lead-up to winter.
“We’ve (the township committee) held a number of studies and surveys in the past, and Ken Smith held a survey 12 months ago on behalf of the Opposition at the time,” he said.
“There is proof that we need and want gas, there is no need for another feasibility study in the town.
“Our argument is other locations in the area, including Lang Lang, Leongatha, Wonthaggi and Inverloch have gas – why shouldn’t we.”
Mr Brown said the committee was “very confident” that Mr Smith would get things moving.
“We’ll be very disappointed if we don’t get it,” he said.
“We’ve got nearly 3000 people living in the town and that number is only going to grow – a precedent has been set in Lang Lang and we don’t want to fall behind.”
Mr Brown said he bumped into Mr Smith on Anzac Day and raised the issue with him, but was disappointed to hear the government had funded a $150,000 feasibility study into bringing gas to the town.
“We’ve already been through that, we can safely say out of the 785 households in the town and 200 more houses to be built soon, more than 90 per cent will sign up to gas, 66 per cent in the first year and 20 percent within two years,” Mr Brown said.
“We’ve got three schools, a hospital, supermarkets and a bakery – the area is growing and we need gas to see that continue.”
Speaker of the house, and Bass MP Ken Smith confirmed he was still pushing for gas at Kooweerup.
“I want it as soon as is possible,” Mr Smith said.
“The funding that is available is set aside for rural areas, and because of a decision of the previous ALP Government Cardinia Shire was declared part of metropolitan Melbourne which excludes them from that particular line of funding, but I am trying to bypass that by having a feasibility study done to justify the need for gas in Kooweerup.”