Give port a chance

I WRITE in response to an article published in a recent edition of the Pakenham Gazette, in which the Labor candidate for Gembrook comments on the proposed Port of Hastings development.
The comment was responding to the view of Cardinia Shire Council that the port is important for the region. Aside from Mr Ross obviously being out of touch with his local community, Cardinia Shire Council’s Manager of Governance, Doug Evans was very clear in conveying the views of council when he said the port would create ‘very serious economic advantages’ for the region, and ‘it will be one of the critical drivers in providing the platform for investment attraction and a catalyst for the development of employment opportunities’.
Mr Ross, in his condemnation of the port, ignores these facts and the benefits and instead says it will have an impact on local traffic.
On this argument, I would like to make several points.
Firstly, if Mr Ross is concerned about gridlock on the Monash Freeway, he should advise his party, the Labor Party, to support East West Link.
Secondly, the views of Mr Evans and Cardinia Shire Council are backed up by a recent study commissioned by the Southern and Gippsland Regional Development Australia offices which found that a developed Port of Hastings would provide ongoing operational impacts for the economy of Melbourne’s South East including benefits of $1 billion a year in the mid-2030s rising to $3 billion a year in the early 2050s, and an additional 5,700 jobs by the mid-2030s, increasing to 15,200 jobs by the early 2050s.
The importance and magnitude of these figures and their obvious benefits for the region cannot be denied.
Thirdly, the $110 million provided for four years of comprehensive planning for the development of the port includes transport connections. The Western Port Highway has been nominated as the preferred alignment for the main road/rail freight corridor, and VicRoads and the Department are already undertaking the detailed work required to move to the next stage of that planning.
One of the major destinations for containers is Dandenong, as our manufacturing and consumer hub. Much of the future freight task from Hastings will be moving along the Western Port Highway to the Dandenong area and will not need to traverse the M1.
And, fourthly, a report that was recently in the Herald Sun quoted a report that contained a figure of an additional 35,000 trucks on the Monash.
This report has since been repeatedly quoted by the Shadow Minister for Ports and other critics of the port development.
I can confirm that the purported Deloitte report was made up, false, never written and never commissioned, and this has been confirmed by Deloitte directly.
It is a sad reflection on Labor that they are out of touch and their methods are so desperate that they are against development for no other reason than to be against it, and are willing to forsake the economic benefits and new jobs to the Cardinia region that will come with this development.
Brad Battin,
Libreral Member for Gembrook.