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Tuesday 16 December 2014
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Labor goes quiet over port plans Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au
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THREE families are about to move into their own new homes at Crib Point thanks to hard work by members of Habitat for Humanity, a group which has already built two houses in Mornington, two in Rosebud and two others in Disney St, Crib Point – the first in Australia – in the late 1990s. Putting the finishing touches to one of the new houses is owner-builder Jude Blake, Habitat for Humanity’s Mavis Peet, Graeme King and Cheryl King. Picture: Yanni. See ‘Partnership puts families in new homes’, Page 10
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DESPITE the new state government’s apparent lack of enthusiasm to build a major container terminal at Hastings, Liberal MP Neale Burgess maintains the port expansion will go ahead. He believes the Labor government led by Premier Daniel Andrews will establish a panel to evaluate Hastings and the so-called Bay West area in Port Phillip before announcing it will go ahead with long-held plans for Western Port. The government says no decision will be made until after a review by the yet to be formed Infrastructure Victoria. The new body will assess the merits of developing the state’s next container port at Hastings or Bay West, near Geelong. “It will be ludicrous to use Port Phillip,” Mr Burgess said on Monday, adding that the outgoing government had spent the past four years planning to expand the Port of Hastings following three years’ backing for the proposal by the former John Brumby-led Labor government. However, an expert has told The News that shipping companies that Victoria’s economy will never be big enough to justify shipping companies
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sending their largest container vessels, even if deep water channels are available in Western Port. Almost echoing the findings of the Build it-but will they come report by Victoria University’s Dr Hermione Parsons, the expert said the extra handling costs of containers at Hastings would be passed on to consumers: “All that will do is give more money to foreign-owned companies… New York takes ships the same size of those coming to Melbourne and there’s no way ships that can’t go to Brisbane or Sydney would come here.” The expert also predicted staff cuts to the Hastings Port Development Authority by mid-February. The authority did not return calls to The News on Monday. Mr Burgess said he intended to “front” new Ports Minister Luke Donnellan about the need to expand the Port of Hastings when parliament sits on Tuesday, 23 December. “I’ll tell him the [container] port has got to be built at Hastings. “I’ve not requested a meeting with him, but I intend to front him and at least talk face to face.” He said Labor still wanted to use Hastings as a “bulk port” to export coal and urea and import bitumen. Continued Page 10
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