SCROUNGER said:
Scrounger you will remember this as will most on here.
Going back some time now, and being an avid fisho at the time, I was one of those people in the Red Tee Shirts waving red flags protesting the dredging of Port Phillip Bay and remember the arguments made by all sides at the time.
Cheaper exports, more jobs, bigger container ships being constructed meant we would miss out if we could't get them in, more jobs and more jobs and from our side environmental destruction of the bay, stronger currents, higher water levels, loss of environment at the heads and contaminated silts being dumped in the bay, just to name a few.
The bottom line, after it was all said and done.
POM introduced a dredging fee to each container @ $65.00 per container, not long after it's introduction it was was soon removed and added to the generic port fees, wasn't politically correct as we the tax payers funded the dredging, to the tune of over 2 billion dollars at the time. Cheaper exports, hows that work
More Jobs, the works where completed by the Netherlands and no increase in shipping traffic or size of container ships?
It allowed Melbourne to remain or be the first off loading port as the fully loaded ships could now get through the heads from the West or the North?
Don't worry about Fremantle, Adelaide or Brisbane and Sydney being logical first ports of call, which they still are by the way, no we had to be the first, to be the biggest go figure that?
To be fair and transparent the other side;
The environmental destruction of the bay etc., the Portsea beach washes away in very heavy weather when the tides are just right, some justice there
and water quality at the top end of the bay has improved and the heads have regenerated? Who knew :lol
