Liverpool Council has criticised an attempt by the chief executive of the Moorebank Intermodal Company (MIC) to push for the unlimited movement of container trucks between Port Botany and a proposed freight terminal at Moorebank.
At the same time, Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun has reaffirmed the council’s anti-intermodal stance and called for greater transparency into the cost of the taxpayer funded project slated for Moorebank and which is yet to be approved by the Federal Government.
In a speech on Wednesday, MIC chief executive Ian Hunt declared that the MIC would move to ensure “there is no cap on the capacity of the terminal’’.
Mr Mannoun said that last September when it examined the Moorebank proposal, the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) approved just 250,000 container movements per year, due to concerns about traffic pressure.
“How Mr Hunt can now make a case for wanting more freight movements than what was originally proposed is beyond me,” Mayor Mannoun said.
He said the NSW and Federal Governments should be investing their funds into developing the necessary infrastructure to make Badgerys Creek the long-term solution, given it would be situated alongside a second international airport already equipped with the right rail and road infrastructure to cope with container movements.
“Liverpool Council has always said that this case doesn’t stack up.
“Mr Hunt’s comments are evidence of that.
“It’s time the government released a full cost-benefit analysis of this proposal,” he said.
Mayor Mannoun said that taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidising the $750 million Moorebank proposal, when the Asciano facility at Chullora is already operating and has the capacity for 800,000 containers at no cost to the taxpayer.
