Abbott calls for crucial container terminal

“It is ridiculous that all of us here in Upper Hunter are condemned to truck access to the Port Botany container terminal, absolutely ridiculous,” says Greens candidate Sue Abbott. 

Ms Abbott said the Upper Hunter’s economic future depends on rail access to a container terminal at the Port of Newcastle, which would eliminate container trucking.

“There is a railway freight line to the Port of Newcastle but there is no container terminal at the end and this absurdity is due to a policy decision by the Coalition government in 2012,” Ms Abbott said.

“What is so often ignored is that 85 percent of container traffic at Port Botany arrives by truck, so even the Sydney region is denied the benefit of rail access to a container terminal. In fact, around 50 percent of all containers imported at Port Botany are exported empty. This is madness,” she said.

“The cost of transporting these empty containers to intermodal terminals in northern and western NSW to facilitate a major expansion in exporting through the Port of Newcastle, would be less than the cost of trucking full containers from northern and western NSW to Port Botany for export,” she said.

“Not only would Upper Hunter benefit from rail access to a Newcastle container terminal but all of western and northern NSW would directly benefit as well,” said Ms Abbott.

Ms Abbott said the Greens voted against the ‘Ports Assets (Authorised Transactions) Act 2012’ that authorised the three major ports to be leased to the private sector in favour of anti-competitive policy.

“The Greens did not support the government’s anti-competitive container terminal policy when it was announced back in 2012, and we still do not support it now,” Ms Abbott said.

“We are committed to investigating how every region in NSW, including Upper Hunter and Sydney, can have rail access to a container terminal, by eliminating container trucking,” she said.

“It is imperative there is a container terminal at the Port of Newcastle because, let’s be clear here, more than 90 percent of world trade in non-bulk commodities is containerised,” she said.

“Our economic future here in Upper Hunter depends on rail access to a container terminal at Newcastle. Yet once again we see our region’s economic future intentionally being stymied by the Coalition,” said Ms Abbott.

Last week in Parliament, spokesperson for the Greens Abigail Boyd said “this Act must now be overturned to allow for transition and diversification in the Upper Hunter.”

“The conditions are effectively a protection racket which extracts prohibitive tariffs from users of the Port of Newcastle and pays them to the owners of Port Botany,” said Ms Boyd.
For more information on where candidates stand: Voting 101: Upper Hunter by-election.