Save Yarra Bay

Port Authority of New South Wales Cruise Capacity project team have issued a project update:

Maria Poulos, Convenor of Save the Bay Coalition, has responded with a letter, emailed to Brad Milner (Executive General Manager Commercial, Technical and Legal) and Ingrid Emery (General Manager, Infrastructure and manager of the Yarra Bay / Molineaux Point project):

Dear Cruise Capacity Team

The decision to place the detailed business case on hold is a welcome development. However, we all know that this project should just be cancelled.

The NSW economy will not be able to support projects that bring little return on investment to the Australian taxpayer. Our home-grown tourism industry must be supported in the Post-COVID-19 recovery phase, not foreign-owned/registered industries that don’t pay taxes and do not hire locally.

The Cruise Capacity project was never going to deliver the economic and social benefits or return on investment the cruise industry would have us believe, even with the questionable figures provided in the Cruise Development plan. In addition to the dubious economic benefits of this project, it was always going to be a public safety hazard located next to high hazard chemical and gas bulk storage facilities. I won’t repeat the environmental and cultural concerns as the Government was obviously unmoved by these legitimate and well-founded objections raised by the community. It NEVER made sense to contemplate destroying a beautiful part of Sydney to cater to a foreign industry that doesn’t even pay taxes here.

We urge you to consider a capping of cruise ships into Sydney and invest in shore to ship power, improved infrastructure at existing facilities and strengthening of environmental regulations and biosecurity at our ports. A clean, sustainable and regulated cruise industry is far preferable to turning Sydney into a polluted, congested and mass transit cruise hub catering to the low-end of the cruise market. What a vision for Sydney!

We would be grateful for the following information:

1/ Will you be releasing the community outcomes report? We committed considerable time and energy to your consultation process and would like to see the results of that.

2/ Will you be continuing work on the detailed business case (notwithstanding the announcement) given that contracts/tenders for different aspects of the final business case would have already been awarded? Or will you be suspending all work at this time?

3/ Are you able to release the preliminary strategic business case at this time?

Finally, the communities of Botany Bay and beyond request that you cancel the project and focus on building the capacity of existing ports to make them state-of-the art ports that commit to meeting global environmental and sustainability standards.

Kind regards

Maria

Now is the time to reinforce the message the Port Authority, its political masters and the cruise industry and tourism lobby groups are hearing loud and clear – after COVID-19, the cruise industry needs to strive for sustainability and social acceptance rather than continue to pressure communities to accommodate its insatiable growth ambitions.

So if you have the time, please write your own heartfelt letter to:

Brad (bmilner@portauthoritynsw.com.au) and Ingrid (iemery@portauthoritynsw.com.au) or to Chief Executive Officer Philip Holliday (pholliday@portauthoritynsw.com.au).

If you prefer post to email, the address is:

PO Box 25
Millers Point
New South Wales 2000