Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have long argued in this place that the Moorebank intermodal terminal is destined to become a white elephant, an example of a planning fallacy. It will not work as a major distribution centre for Sydney, simply because it is not centrally located and both governments and the private sector need to invest billions to actually get this up and running. It also will not work because it is too close to Port Botany to work as an effective intermodal terminal. From Port Botany in non-peak hour, Moorebank intermodal is just 28 minutes down the road, and that does not offset the cost of the double handling needed through an intermodal.

But I am pleased that at least some are finally starting to listen to me. The penny is starting to drop. A few weeks ago Aurizon, which held a 33 per cent stake in the Moorebank intermodal, decided to ditch its entire investment, leaving Qube to go it alone and to carry all the risk—and what a risk it is! We know that Aurizon are now going to move their intermodal facility and locate it at Enfield.

It was only last year that we had supposed experts from the transport and planning departments here in parliament telling us that Enfield was a bad location, a dud location that would not work. Yet we have Aurizon selling their share in Moorebank, moving out and saying that, to them, Enfield is superior. The writing should be on the wall. Just a couple of weeks ago, an analyst for TheAustralian Financial Review wrote:

None of the potential customers I have talked to have indicated they are going to be moving quickly on Moorebank.

If there is no demand, if customers are not going to relocate their business to Moorebank to set up a distribution facility, surely the penny must now start to drop.

We have had the changes from the Planning Assessment Commission. They have made a regulation that all containers must be transferred to Port Botany by road rather than rail. They have also put the case that the locomotives all need to be incorporating best practice noise controls. And the site cannot start until the Southern Sydney Freight Line, that rail spur, is up and running. Let's hope that all parties can now realise that this project is not going to work. It is a bad use of our resources and a bad use of the land resources in Sydney. This project is destined to become a white elephant. Let's hope that the minister and the shareholders of Qube can sit down and save money for both the Commonwealth and the shareholders.