Moorebank Intermodal Precinct East - Stage 1

Can i start by stating that i strongly object to the proposal.

The more I read about the proposed intermodal, the more I see what a disaster this will be for our area. Our roads are already at capacity (especially during peak times), and the intermodal will absolutely choke our local roads, keeping in mind that we live in a predominantly "Residential" Zone area. For this reason, our Land Use Zone will being predominately Residential will be adversely affected by Commercial traffic, Commercial Noise, Commercial Pollution and Poor Air quality. Typically these activities are not associated with a residential zone, especially where young families an d elderly retirees reside.

The traffic management report indicates significant increases in traffic. The report clearly indicates long ques are predicted on the roads surrounding the M5 on and off ramps around Moorebank Ave. The proposal should not be supported on the traffic issues identified in the report alone. If the proposal is to go ahead, this will be another "white elephant" for the government causing a traffic disaster for the local area. Other suitable industrial areas within the wider Sydney region should be considered in lieu of the current proposed location.

If you are to use the local roads around peak times, you will understand that they are already at capacity. I would invite you to drive from Wattle Grove to Bankstown Airport during the times of 7am-8am as well as from Chipping Norton to Campbelltown Or Moorebank to Holsworthy Station during the same times in which you would understand current traffic problems and see the local roads at their capacity already.

Furthermore I object to the proposal based on increase in noise, pollution, hours of operation and large trucks using our "residential" roads. Young families and elderly residents will be adversely affected by noise pollution, air pollution and increases in traffic. Operation should be limited to business hours only and not 24 hours. I or my family don't want to be woken by compression breaking from trucks throughout the night. Our homes were not acoustically designed for this excessive truck noise. Compensation will be sought should such a proposal go ahead.

A further concern is the impact of pollution including Air and siltation on the Georges River. Many of us local residents often fish in the Georges river at chipping Norton. This river is already struggling with pollution, this intermodal will only have an increased impact on our natural environment where families use it for recreation and local wildlife including the Australian Bass and local birds live and reside in. Why not open this to residential development. Have a look at chipping Norton and the way this suburb has utilised the lake. There are million dollar plus houses, the proposed intermodal site could be utilised for this to promote river side living rather than the proposed pollution noise emitting intermodal.

In summary my family and I strongly object to the proposal based Noise Pollution, Traffic congestion, Air pollution including increases in poor air quality and adverse environmental impacts on the environment including the Georges River as indicated in my submission above. Strong objection is made to the 24 hour operation of the proposal. South West Sydney residents are no longer willing to put up with the area being a dumping ground of bad planning decisions, of which this one is the worst by far.

Thanks

I object on the grounds it is not healthy to have so much movement in a built up area. There is plenty of viable land that is just as easy to connect to that will not have the same impact on human health. Not only that the noise and the traffic is a concern in such a growing area.

I believe the Intermodal Freight Terminal should be at Badgery's Creek Airport, not in an established area like Moorebank.

I believe the Intermodal should be at Badgery's Creek Airport not Moorebank. The M5 is already heavily loaded with trucks.

I believe the Intermodal Freight Terminal should be at Badgerys Creek Airport, not Moorebank as the traffic, noise pollution and air quality will be intolerable.

I strongly disagree about the construction and tge operation of the SIMTA concept plan. I don't think this proposal is appropriate for the area due to the family friendly aspects. The proposal will only cause congestion to the already busy road and will effect our families health.

I am against this Project, I believe this is going to be a disaster for the local area and its residents. The noise, light and traffic pollution will be unacceptable for locals, it will be also a eye sore for the area.
The traffic increase will be stressful
The land would be better used for new residential housing.

the plan for the Intermodal site with have an enormous impact on traffic on the M5 and surrounding arterial and feeder roads. These roads will not be able to cope with this massive influx of trucks and ancillary vehicles operating to and from this facility. The impact on the environment, the local community and the traffic will not be sustainable. Surely we the commuters have not put up,with all the aggravation of the last 3 years of road work on the M5 solely so that any benefit gained by the extra lane will be lost in one fell swoop by this company's operations? This is not acceptable. Further to that, the increase in noise levels, and air pollution will have a negative impact locally, and all along the M5 and F5 routes.

The terminal will cause traffic chaos in an already congested area, the quality of the roads will decrease with the increased truck usage resulting in increased Rate Payer spendage, and residents properties will decrease in value.

The Moorebank container depot Intermodal is totally wrong.
It is the wrong type of facility for the residential surrounding area.
It is in the wrong geographic location for Sydney. On the edge of a wilderness? It should be somewhere in the middle of the market.

The site at Moorebank should be rezoned for residential and recreation.
I Bailey

POLLUTION
Placing a heavy industrial facility in the middle of a residential area is negligent and will be detrimental to our community. The proposed site is located in a basin which allows pollution to lie, rather than easily move away. The NSW Planning and Assessment Commission have already recognised that the air quality in the Liverpool area is generally well below guidelines. Additional diesel emissions and particulate matter released from this proposal will prove dangerous for residents, especially children and the elderly.

TRAFFIC CONGESTION/INFRUSTRUCTURE REQUIREMENTS
The M5 motorway and surrounding roads in the South West Region are already suffering from chronic traffic congestion and this will significantly worsen with the 10,000 additional truck movements per day expected from the new Intermodal - that's an extra truck every 8 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It will also mean $750 million worth of works will be required on major road and rail connections to accommodate this outdated proposal.


LOCATION
MOOREBANK may not the best place for two proposed intermodal freight terminals, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Eric Abetz, has conceded.
During a community meeting in Wattle Grove Senator Abetz said that he supported Liverpool Council's campaign to have the terminals relocated to Badgerys Creek.
"The proposed intermodal, which may have been a good idea all those years ago, is no longer a good idea," he said.
Senator Abetz said something that might have been a good idea 10 or 15 years ago was not necessarily a good idea today.
"A good government, I believe, should always be open-minded and should always be flexible," he said. "I happen to agree, that with the current financial status we face as a nation, any decision we make should be looking at the best economic opportunity.
"From what I have heard there is apparently no doubt. That is the message I will be taking back to my ministerial colleagues, that putting an intermodal here, on the face of it, would be extremely inefficient."

The good news is that there is a smart alternative, and this is to build the new Intermodal at the site of the new international airport at Badgerys Creek. Here, it can connect with existing and planned major transport routes while also reducing traffic on our roads.

Badgerys Creek is the better option

It is located where $3.5 billion of new roads and rail lines will be built for the new airport and will save tax payers money
It is big enough to handle the 1.1 million containers each year with room to grow in the future
It would save money as the road and rail upgrades needed for the Moorebank plan would cost more than $750 million.
It will reduce truck traffic in a highly populated residential area, protect air quality and the local environment around the Georges River from permanent degradation, leading to better health outcomes
It is closer to the industial and freight markets of Western Sydney
Badgerys Creek is already owned by the government
The sale of land at Moorebank could raise more than $482 million to fund an intermodal at Badgery's Creek and would house 40,000 people
DEMAND OR NEED FOR AN INTERMODAL AT MOOREBANK
Existing intermodals in Western Sydney have the capacity to expand. The economic viability of the proposed intermodals at Moorebank have already been questioned by the industry (se Asciano challenges freight hub, SMH, July 2, 2014). The PAC's decision to limit the operational capacity of the Moorebank site further calls into question it's viability.
Any intermodal at Moorebank will attract heavy competition from Chullora intermodal in which $112 million is being invested to expand it's capacity to 600,000 TEUs per year by 2015. It is reported that there is further potential to increase capacity at Chullorato 800,000 TEUs per year and the Enfield intermodal is expected to accept up to 300,000 TEUs per year.
Development of the proposed intermodal at Moorebank will take considerable time as it involves the construction of complex rail spurs and intersection upgrades. Chullora and Enfield could address Sydney's freight problems in the short term leaving room to plan for the Badgerys Creek option.

Decades ago, when Moorebank was put forward as the site for the Intermodal, Sydney was not facing a chronic housing crisis and cities didn't value their rivers like we do now. If developed into premium riverside homes, the Moorebank site, worth $482 million, has the potential to help alleviate the current housing crisis identified in the Metropolitan Strategy for Sydney.

A plan to revitalise the Liverpool area by embracing natural assets, such as the Georges River, and utilising land to its full potential presents an opportunity to lift the socio-economic status and improve overall health in the area. Liverpool should be considered as a prime location for the government's Liveable Communities Programme which has been successful in other locations.


MORE REASONS AGAINST AN INTERMODAL AT MOOREBANK

Political leaders Local, State and Federal agree that the intermodals should not be at Moorebank for so many reasons.
Just ask Craig Kelly MP, Melanie Gibbons MP, The Mayor of Liverpool , Ned Mannoun and now Senator Eric Abetz.
Craig Kelly MP and Melanie Gibbons MP have made informative speeches in their parliaments outlining why an intermodal at Moorebank is the wrong thing to do. As not many people were in the house at he time to hear these speeches I feel their message is not getting through to the decision makers. Copies of their speeches displaying just some of the evidence as to why Moorebank is the wrong move can be found on the Hansard records.


In Craig Kelly MP's words in Parliament of Australia:
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (17:45)
Tuesday, 16 June 2015
Page: 59
"By having an intermodal at Moorebank instead of at Badgerys Creek, we are losing one of our abilities as a nation to fund the railway line into Badgerys Creek. The member for Grayndler emphasised the importance of building that railway line, but our funding is not unlimited. By investing in Moorebank--by pouring Commonwealth money down the toilet in Moorebank--we are simply making it harder and harder. That money should have been put into the rail link to get it set up at Badgerys Creek.
That draws me to an article that I came across after reading an article by Nick Cater today. This article is called 'Policy and planning for large infrastructure projects: problems, causes, cures'. It is a World Bank working policy from December 2005, and it talks about the exact problem that we have with Badgerys Creek, the 'planning fallacy'. It says:
... a major problem in the planning of large infrastructure projects is the high level of misinformation about costs and benefits that decision makers face in deciding whether to build, and the high risks such misinformation generates.
This is exactly what we have at Moorebank. It goes on, and it cites examples of how forecasts for rail projects have failed. It does a study across different continents, and for rail transportation infrastructure projects it finds the cost overruns, averaged across more than 50 projects, are 44.7 per cent measured in prices. It finds not only that the cost is more than 40 per cent higher but that the actual passage of traffic is 51 per cent lower than predicted. We have seen this in Sydney with our planning debacles: the Cross City Tunnel and the Lane Cove Tunnel. We have seen this in Brisbane. The article goes on:
84 percent of rail passenger forecasts are wrong by more than ... 20 per cent.
9 out of 10 rail projects have overestimated traffic.
Again, this is what we are at risk of seeing at Moorebank. It goes on to ask why this is happening, and it says:
In the grip of the planning fallacy, planners and project promoters make decisions based on delusional optimism rather than on a rational weighting of gains, losses, and probabilities. They overestimate benefits and underestimate costs. They involuntarily spin scenarios of success and overlook the potential for mistakes and miscalculations.
That sums up the Moorebank Intermodal to a tee. It also gives a warning about how to overcome this. It says:
The key weapons in the war on ... waste are accountability and critical questioning.
That is again the problem that we have with Moorebank. There is simply no answering of the critical questions. There are three completely failed premises: it takes trucks off the road, it reduces air pollution and it saves costs. Any critical analysis of those three premises shows that they are completely faulty. In the Moorebank Intermodal, we have another complete planning fallacy. This should be combined with the airport at Badgerys Creek.
We have had the warning also from Infrastructure New South Wales. They have warned that the case has not been proven for Sydney for intracity intermodals. They have said that Enfield is a test case. Enfield has already been delayed by two years. We would be far better off if, instead of keeping that money down the toilet in the Moorebank Intermodal, we invested it in getting the rail infrastructure into Badgerys Creek, which will be a fantastic development for Western Sydney."

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (21:05):
Monday, 15 June 2015
Page: 111
"I would like to continue from where I was speaking this morning on a few mistaken concepts surrounding the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal. The first is that it takes trucks off the road, the second is that it reduces pollution and the third is that it will save costs--all simplistic, motherhood statements, but when you dig down to the facts they are all completely misguided.
Firstly is the idea that it takes trucks off the road. You need to look at where the containers actually go in Sydney and you also need to look at where the goods from those containers go to work out that this will not take trucks off the road. It will simply relocate the starting point for those containers from Port Botany out to Moorebank.
The goods still have to get on the road and there are two ways that can happen. Firstly, the containers will be transported and relocated from the site. Rather than currently, where a container goes directly by truck from Port Botany to, say, Eastern Creek or to the Wetherill Park area, where most of the containers go in Sydney, the idea is that it will actually go on a train all the way around to Moorebank. It will then be unloaded from the train, put on a stack and then put on another truck and trucked from Moorebank up to Wetherill Park or Eastern Creek. This does not take trucks off the road; it puts trucks on the road. It increases the congestion in Western Sydney.
The other possibility is that the containers are actually unpacked on site and distributed from Moorebank. Again, that fails to take trucks off the road because Moorebank is too far away from the demographic centre of Sydney. The demographic centre of Sydney is around the Parramatta area. If you look, that demographic centre actually becomes a proxy for where the centre of distribution of goods will be. This is why we see the majority of the containers going into Eastern Creek, or going into the Wetherill Park area, because they are the closest major industrial areas to the demographic heart of Sydney. Instead of distributing those goods from a warehouse in those areas, if you move your distribution point down to Moorebank, your smaller trucks have more miles of Sydney to cover than they otherwise would. By all accounts, the idea that it takes trucks off the road is simply and completely mistaken.
The second failed concept is that this somehow reduces pollution in Western Sydney. It is true that if you move goods on rail, as compared to road, you use less diesel fuel. In fact, using the proponents' own numbers, you use half the diesel fuel. So, yes, it is true that with just the container movement compared to road movement, you will reduce carbon dioxide emissions--that clear, odourless, harmless gas that makes the plants grow. The real dangerous air pollution is fine and coarse particulate matter that causes lung cancer, heart disease and childhood asthma, and kills thousands of people in Sydney every single year. By taking a container off a truck and putting it on these old locomotives, these 40- and 50-year old locomotives, without any pollution controls actually increases the pollution almost tenfold. It does not double it. It does not triple it. It is almost a tenfold increase in particulate matter pollution for moving that container into Western Sydney.
The third failed logical idea of this is that it will save costs. An intermodal concept of shuffling goods out to Western Sydney is simply a case of double-handling. You have a second lift. You have to lift at the port and you also have a lift at the intermodal. We also have the costs. Moorebank is located almost on an island around the Georges River. For this project to have any hope of working--for the containers to have any hope at all of getting out of that side of Moorebank--we need almost a $750 million upgrade to access the M5. The current bridge across the M5 takes 120,000 cars a day. Compare that to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which takes 160,000. Can you imagine fully laden semitrailers trying to merge into traffic on the Harbour Bridge and then merge across lanes? This is the insanity that they are trying to do at Moorebank. Without that $750 million, at least, upgrade the terminal will simply not work; it will be a white elephant.
And there is the opportunity cost. This money should be invested for the benefit of the nation either at Badgerys Creek, where the airport is to be constructed or out at Eastern Creek."

Tuesday, 23 September 2014
Page: 10298
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (20:11): "I am pleased to rise on the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Cost Benefit Analysis and Other Measures) Bill 2014. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008 so that it is a function of Infrastructure Australia to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of those infrastructure projects which are of national significance and which also involve Commonwealth funding of at least $100 million. We know the reason why this bill was required. It is trying to rectify the evil of the absolute debacle we had under the previous Labor government with their so-called NBN and their complete failure to have a cost-benefit analysis of that project, which saw billions of dollars of precious capital wasted. It is not only important that we have a cost-benefit analysis, it is also important that that cost-benefit analysis accounts for all the costs and makes sure it does not overstate or understate the benefits.
In the remaining time available tonight on this bill I would like to set out a textbook example of a complete failure of a cost-benefit analysis--a cost-benefit analysis full of flawed assumptions that failed to take into account all the costs and completely overstated all the benefits. The cost-benefit analysis I am referring to is that done under the previous Labor government of what is known as the Moorebank intermodal project. We saw from the so-called cost-benefit analysis that was done for this project that it assumed it would have a cost-benefit ratio of 1.72. It sounds pretty impressive until we actually go through all the costs they failed to consider.
The first cost they failed to consider was the cost of the land. This land is the existing School of Military Engineering which is between Moorebank Avenue and the Georges River. As part of the Defence annual report of 2012-13, we currently have that land, which is 333½ hectares, valued at just $261.7 million. That is less than $1 million per hectare of land. We have seen small housing lots with houses in our area selling for over $1 million, but here we have the valuation at just $1 million per hectare. And this is highly valuable land. A back-of-the-envelope calculation is that perhaps we need another zero on the end of the valuation of this land. We have land that is a stone's throw from Casula railway station. A footbridge could be put across the Georges River there, and that entire 330-hectare precinct could be accessible by a railway station. There are so many wonderful things that could be done with that parcel of land. And if that land was valued in the cost-benefit analysis at its true value, then the so-called cost-benefit analysis that was done previously simply falls over in a screaming heap.
Secondly, what the cost-benefit analysis of the Moorebank Intermodal fails to consider is the cost of all the road and bridge upgrades that are needed, the extra congestion on the local roads, and the commercial effect on the Liverpool CBD. I would like to quickly go through a few of those. The only actual cost of the needed road upgrades that this analysis has added on is a simply four-lane extension to one current section of Moorebank Avenue. That is not in their cost projections until 2029-30. We are talking about moving a million containers a year through this area. The area at the moment is completely congested. People think Port Botany is congested, but all you are doing is moving a problem from Port Botany and dumping that problem out in the Moorebank-Liverpool area. For this intermodal to work, we need billions of dollars worth of upgrades to the local road network.
I will go through just a few that are needed. Firstly, we need a new bridge over the M5 motorway across the Georges River. We need another new bridge over Cambridge Avenue at the southern end of the development, also over the Georges River. We need a new bridge on the Hume Highway over Cabramatta Creek. Currently the Hume Highway is six lanes, but the bridge is only four lanes. If we are going to put all this extra traffic in our area, that bridge needs to be upgraded to six lanes. The same goes for the bridge over Prospect Creek. Again, the Hume Highway is six lanes, and the bridge is only four. If this intermodal is going to work and have efficiencies in moving trucks around our local area, that needs to be upgraded. Then we need improved access to the M5. We need a new overpass at Glenfield. A new Liverpool CBD bypass would be required. We would also have to deal with what is either Australia's first or third worst accident hot spot in the entire country. I am talking about the Hume Highway at the back of the Liverpool CBD. Last year we had almost 200 accidents in that short few hundred yards of space, making it one of the worst black spots in our nation's history. Of all the roads we have in our country, this is one of the worst black spots. And the plan is to actually put 270,000 TEU movements through that existing road network. So, if this intermodal has any hope of being economically viable and efficient, we also need that road upgrade. The list of intersections that need upgrading just goes on and on and on. I have a list here of at least 40 different intersections. We are talking about billions of dollars worth of upgrades to local roads that are needed to make this intermodal viable. But not one of those costs is actually in the cost-benefit analysis.
Then we get on to the effect and the reduced access to the Liverpool hospital. The Liverpool hospital is the largest hospital in the Southern Hemisphere. It services all of south-west Sydney, and it is planned that it will grow and grow in the years to come as our population in the south-west continues to increase. The proposal to put in an extra million TEU containers on the local road network and increasing the truck movements through that area will actually reduce access to that hospital. It will mean that someone travelling in the back of an ambulance will have to wait longer in congested traffic to get through the Liverpool CBD. None of that is in the cost-benefit analysis. The other thing that is not in there is the environmental cost, particularly the cost of increasing particulate emissions. This is one of the areas where the cost-benefit analysis that has already been done completely and utterly fails, because it falsely assumes that there are actually some environmental benefits. It considers CO2 emissions without considering the emissions of particulates. There is a big debate about what CO2 emissions do, but the effect this will have will be negligible. However, there will be a real effect on particulate emissions.
The reason for this mistake is that if we put a container on the back of a train, as compared with moving it by road, then, yes, the rail is more efficient in terms of fuel use. It is actually twice as efficient. So, we need half the amount of diesel fuel. If we are moving a container from Port Botany to Moorebank and if we take it by road, we need twice the amount of diesel fuel. But what the cost-benefit analysis failed to look at is the different levels of particulate emissions from a truck versus those polluting diesel trains. I had the Parliamentary Library do some research for me in this area. For a truck built after 2007--a truck that is getting towards seven or eight years old--compared with the diesel trains we are using, the diesel trains have 20 times more particulate pollution. So, what we will do for every container we take off the road and put on the rail, to move it from Port Botany to Moorebank, is increase the particulate emissions 10-fold. Why is this important? Already in Western Sydney and throughout New South Wales there are over 1,000 deaths a year attributed to particulate-matter air pollution.
Our monitoring station in Liverpool has continued to show an increase in particulate emissions over the last several years, because of the carbon tax and other issues that have pushed up electricity prices, such as the RET, and with higher electricity prices people have been burning more wood to keep their houses warm in winter. That has raised the particulate matter in Western Sydney--in fact, it has raised it so much that we have had levels in Western Sydney above World Health Organisation standards. The previous government came up with a plan--which, I hate to say, we have at the moment adopted, although hopefully we will see common sense--that will increase the particulate emissions for every container that is moved from Port Botany to Western Sydney 10 times. Of course, that is not included there.
Then we have the case of overstating the benefits. There are warning bells on this project. New South Wales Infrastructure, the state infrastructure strategy said:
The short-haul rail market is essentially unproven in Sydney. At present most demand in Sydney is for long-haul export freight and there is significant capacity available at a number of existing intermodal terminals.
Sydney Ports and Hutchison are currently developing a 300,000 TEU per annum intermodal facility at Enfield. which, it says, was to open in 2013 but has now been pushed back until the end of this year. Enfield proves the test case for larger-scale, short-haul intermodal freight in Sydney. The recommendation from New South Wales Infrastructure is that state public funding for additional intermodal capacity in Sydney be minimised until there is greater clarity on whether the short-haul freight market is viable. That has been completely forgotten in this cost-benefit analysis. It has also failed to consider the competitive exchanges in the market that have occurred. In the last 12 months we know we have had Enfield with a 300,000 capacity which could very easily be stepped up to 400,000 or 500,000. We also had an announcement a few months ago that Asciano would build a 600,000 TEU capacity at Chullora. So we are to have a million TEU capacity coming on line in the next 12 to 18 months. There is simply no demand whatsoever for another million TEU capacity at Moorebank. But none of that has been considered.
Then we have the announcement of Westconnex, which will open up the west of Sydney to the port areas and the airports. The issue is that most of the container freight from port Botany goes out to Western Sydney and particularly to the Eastern Creek area. It defies logic that, when a container arrives at Port Botany, an importer is going to take that container, put it on a train and freight it all the way around to Moorebank, take it off the train at Moorebank, put it on a truck and take it 20 or 25 kilometres up to Eastern Creek. When Westconnex is complete, they will be able to put that container straight on the back of their truck at Port Botany, jump on Westconnex and be up in the Eastern Creek area in half an hour or 40 minutes. So the improvements in infrastructure that this government has announced with Westconnex and the M5 upgrade make the Moorebank project completely redundant."

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SIMTA JUNE 2015 SUBMISSION

As SIMTA AND MIC will be joined as one mega intermodal, a new EIS should be started from the beginning to connect the details of both operations and put them into one EIS. This makes perfect sense as the effects of the total joined operation compared to that of either the MIC or SIMTA alone is very substantial. It therefore renders many facts and statements made in the EIS's form MIC and SIMTA void and out of date.


JOBS
One of the selling points for this proposal is the apparent large number of jobs for the people of the area. This is false advertising as everybody knows that jobs will be awarded on the basis of skill and experience, not location of where one lives.

It's anticipated 1650 full time jobs will be created during construction, and a further 1,700 people could be employed in the Liverpool region once the project is up and running.

Since a technology park or commercial development could employ 15,000 people on that block of land, 1700 jobs in the region, not even at the terminal, but every related industry from the lunch shop to the warehouse to the trucks that are going to congest local roads. That's over 13,000 local people forced to catch the overcrowded trains into town or drive to North Ryde or Rhodes or Mascot because the government doesn't want them to work locally.
This terminal robs around 13,000 local people of the opportunity to work in the local area. A commercial development of a similar density to Rhodes or Macquarie Park could easily accomodate 15,000 office workers on the site and with a station just across the river all that's needed to reduce the traffic is a foot bridge.

Many local residents have raised concerns about the likelihood that other land uses, such as commercial land uses, could provide many more jobs. At the PAC meeting we heard just how much worse a container terminal is as a source of jobs than a commercial development on a hectare for hectare basis.

What shocked me was hearing how the terminal actually takes jobs away from the local area!

If the terminal goes ahead, then it is reasonable to think that light industrial areas will be converted to warehousing. All of those containers have to go somewhere right? But large warehouses employ fewer people per hectare than light industrial developments - each small manufacturer and panel beater, and so write more pay cheques at the end of the week than a huge warehouse does.



TRUCKS OFF ROADS LIE
Another selling point for this proposal has been the false statements that it will take trucks off the M5 motorway between Port Botany and Moorebank. This falsity was even admitted by the CEO of the MIT, Ian Hunt in one of the community consultations in Casula.
"A new freight terminal in Sydney's south-west will take 3,300 trucks off Sydney roads" has been a phrase used to push this proposal through.
Now this lie is so obvious that I can't believe they aren't ashamed to say it. Each container that arrives on a train has to get back onto the same truck that would have taken it away from Port Botany. That's a sum total of zero trucks taken off the road. They might be closer to their destination, but they are still on the road and they are on roads they weren't on before.

Another statement widely used had been
"Moorebank is the ideal location because of its close proximity to major connecting routes such as the M5, M7 and the Southern Sydney Freight Line"

If all of these trucks are disappearing from the roads, why the emphasis on proximity to the M5 and M7? The truth is they are taking trucks off the roads in their electorates and putting them somewhere else. This doesn't fix the problem, it just moves it.


NOISE

Residents who live in the suburbs that surround the Port Botany Container Terminal have for some time suffered from sleep disturbance. The noise created by the terminal is so loud that people living up to 3 kilometres from the SITE are being kept awake of a night.
What hope do SIMTA have of mitigating the noise level on those residents living as close as 400 to 900 metres from their facility.



POLLUTION

Base line studies for air pollution need to be accurate and based on a wide selection of the community. The testing stations should be placed in schools, child care centres, aged care facilities, local streets, parks etc. The figures should be made available to the public via a website and should be updated on an hourly/daily basis as they do in Japan so the public is warned when the pollution levels get too high for people to be outside for too long.

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THE FUTURE

Ian Hunt said during the community consultation that MICL are in negotiations with SIMTA as the preferred operator of the terminal. Whether it is SIMTA or another company that ends up operating it, MICL plan to sell it regardless he told us.
It has also been stated in an MICL booklet that "the plans will be revised by the terminal operator so the final design is likely to be different from the concept plan".
Does this mean that the operator of the terminal will not have to strictly stick to the design features that MICL have said will:
1) mitigate or control the noise
2) mitigate or control the traffic congestion
3) mitigate or control air pollution
4) enhance the community or be beneficial to the community ie in relation to aesthetic appeal or number of predicted jobs

MICL will set the guidelines or recommendations as stated in their EIS, Project Plan and Approval Stage Processes that are intended or estimated (note: not guaranteed) to mitigate (note: not remove) any negatives as a result of the operation being built to their plans. If this isn't terrible enough for the nearby residents or commuters to accept, there is no guarantee that the future operator, as a business trying to save money, will strictly follow all of the recommendations made in the EIS. It is expected that as a company trying to save money, that they will cut corners at the detriment of the nearby residents and commuters of South Western Sydney.

Who will monitor their movements and practices?

How will statistics such as air and noise pollution be monitored and made available to the public?

Can we trust this information to be an accurate representation of the area? Even the EPA get things wrong-this fact was displayed recently when noise pollution figures at Port Botany were shown to be incorrect and the local residents within a 3 km radius were affected

Who will be responsible for all the noise, pollution and traffic accidents due to the operator not sticking to the guidelines set in the EIS?

Who will be responsible for all the noise, pollution, traffic congestion and traffic accidents due to the experts in their field that have carefully worded their part of the EIS by using weasel words and phrases such as "expected to", "not expected to", "likely", "unlikely" etc to remove any responsibility from themselves once the negative impacts actually begin to take place?

"Mitigating the impact" will not "remove" the negative impacts this intermodal will produce if built at Moorebank which are far too many in number to make this proposal a viable and fair project to go ahead with.


In the SIMTA EIS it states " Most of the vehicles using the terminal...are expected to enter the terminal from , and exit to the north....Entrances to the terminal will be designed to prevent trucks travelling to/from the south".
To me this does not give any guarantee to what they are implying because it is only "expected to" (not guaranteed) and "will be designed" (does not mean will be built that way).
This sort of terminology throughout all of the documents does not give the local residents and commuters any sense of security as to what they can expect in the future should this monstrosity be built.

On the same page, "the terminal is likely to have a small impact on vehicle speeds on the M5 Motorway, Hume Hwy and other roads near the terminal. Some local intersections may experience a slightly longer delay time. These impacts will be further investigated in the EIS for the terminal's project approval".
This message is subjective. The words "small" and slightly longer delay time" might mean something totally different to the roads expert writing the EIS verses the commuter who uses the local roads on a daily basis. I also find it hard to believe that only small increase in delay at intersections will be experienced as a result of the terminal's operations in the year 2030 given the volume of vehicles expected to use this site on a 24 hour basis..


Who will pay for all the upgrades to the roads (not on Moorebank Ave) that will be required should this intermodal go ahead? I can see a blame game will start to occur and nothing will get done and commuters will suffer.
Upgrades to roads from Anzac Road to Newbridge Road via the intersections of Wattle Grove Drive, Nuwarra Road, Heathcote Road, Brickmakers Drive have not been mentioned in any literature. Trucks and smaller vehicles will use these roads and nothing has been said about upgrading them to cope with the traffic generated from the intermodal.

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SIMTA submission on traffic
A proposed intermodal terminal at Moorebank is unviable because the local road network reached capacity in 2010, and traffic is steadily increasing. Without extensive upgrading of capacity, the ability of intermodal traffic to access the local road network will be severely restricted, which makes the project unviable. The proponents do not propose to upgrade the local road network.

Traffic modelling by the intermodal proponent SIMTA, showed that local road network capacity of 94,491 vehicles per day was reached in 2010. The model showed that an extra 757 vehicles per day in 2010 were ''blocked'', meaning they could not enter the network. While recent M5 widening has added more capacity, there has also been more traffic. With this increased traffic, merging at Moorebank Avenue has worsened.

According to the government's 2013 ''NSW Freight and Ports Strategy'', the section of the M5 Motorway between the Hume Highway at Casula and Moorebank Avenue, will exceed capacity by the end of this year, and by 2026, peak traffic conditions similar to the existing peak in the Liverpool area will persist for most of the day.

By 2030, traffic queues on three key intersections will exceed the distances between these intersections, resulting in extensive delays and possible gridlock. The intersections are: Newbridge Road - Moorebank Avenue; Moorebank Ave - Heathcote Road; and, M5 - Moorebank Ave. Additionally, M5 traffic will be unable to exit onto Heathcote Road, or weave into the queue to exit at the Hume Highway.

The intermodal proponents failed to model future background traffic for inclusion in their forecasts. Their traffic projections for 2030 comprise the base year (2010) plus intermodal traffic. Major road upgrades required to accommodate unconstrained traffic growth were not reported.

Two methods of traffic modelling were used by the proponents. The first, a ''strategic model'' allows a network to run over capacity. The second, a ''micro-simulation model'' incorporates network capacity.

Traffic modelling for the intermodal used the ''strategic model'' to generate the future travel demand but that demand was not used in the ''micro-simulation model''. This failure was reported by the modelling auditors when they identified that future background traffic had not been estimated. Consequently, the modelling accepted by the government was based on data which could not have been generated using the claimed source.

Economic, social and environmental effects of the intermodal are only able to be evaluated if correct traffic modelling is applied.

Keep the trucks where it industry area, we have got
A sick chiled already , can not afford to put up with more

Exhaustive environmental and economic studies must be conducted. I do not believe this has been properly addressed. In fact, I am appalled at the "find results to match the desired outcome" method of the whole process.

Citizens' concerns about air quality have been pooh-poohed. One morning, attempting to cross Newbridge Road near Moorebank Avenue on my bicycle, I had to get off my bike because I was about to faint. I had to walk carefully because I was gagging and woozy. I could taste the exhaust fumes in my mouth. I eventually made it to Light Horse Bridge, where there was a bit of air movement and I was able to get back on my bike. This is OK by you? And we don't have an intermodal yet!

The river is sick and filthy as it passes through Liverpool. Hardstand developments should not be built on the banks of rivers. All over the world, waterfront land is being reclaimed from industry and returned to the people. Why is Liverpool being treated as if it were a third world country?

The fundamental appropriateness of this development has never been examined. It is not appropriate because it is on the banks of the river, in the middle of residential areas, surrounded by schools and cultural centres.

The traffic will not function. You are talking about traffic volumes exceeding Sydney Harbour bridge. Think about the support infrastructure around Sydney Harbour Bridge. This is what will need to be built in Liverpool in order for the intermodals to function. Neither State nor Federal governments have signed up for that. Why is this so hard to understand?

The social, health and economic disbenefits to this community have not been addressed.

The newly-built Enfield intermodal still has not commenced operation. Why is there a problem getting someone to operate it? Could it be that it is not economically viable? It is only a stone's throw from Chullora, who have just doubled their capacity with the introduction of new technology. If they cannot even get Enfield up and running, why on earth are you considering opening another at Moorebank?

It should be built at Eastern Creek for now, and Badgery's Creek down the track.

I am appalled that reason has had to date so little influence on decision making.

Infrastructure will focus all traffic through Moorebank aveThis also creates main focus for remainder local traffic to enter and leave Anzac and Australis drive.Both of these entry/exit points become hotspots creating backlog of exhaust emissions, noise and physical traffic particularly during peak hrs.Servicing of workers will place extra burden on existing residents and surrounding suburbs.If emergency event occurs and immediate evacuation of area is needed again residents of wattle grove will be focused through this arterial point and congestion and further risks will occur. More traffic/events will increase risk of accidents in area.

I object to the SIMTA Moorebank Intermodal Facility going ahead. I believe it will cause significant stress on Moorebank's already strained road infrastructure. It will also have a negative impact on residents quality of life in the following ways; increased air pollution, increased road congestion; excessive noise (over and above tolerable levels); significant reduction in property prices to the area. In addition I also believe there is more than sufficient infrastructure at Port Botany to meet current and future freight demands rendering this facility costly, damaging and superfluous.

I strongly object to the SIMTA Moorebank Intermodal Facility, I think it could be built in a much better location like at the (new international airport at Badgerys Creek), if it was located at Badgerys Creek airport I think the facility could be used to its full potential for road, rail and air. Also there it can connect with existing and planned major transport routes.

If the Intermodal was at Moorebank it will cause more traffic, more noise and more pollution on the already choked roads! Furthermore, the M5 and surrounding roads would become even more congested with extra trucks on it, I do not think these roads are capable of taking any more strain and it would lead to them coming to a grinding halt! The strain on the environment is also a big concern with more noise and pollution. Please do not make a major and regrettable mistake by putting the Intermodal at Moorebank.

South West Sydney is wonderful place to live, please reconsider the location of the SIMTA Intermodal!

Thank you.

I am a resident of Casula and overlook the old Casula Links Golf Course next to the Georges River. I object wholeheartedly with an Intermodal being built at Moorebank. Not only is it in the wrong place to build this in general, it will impact me directly and so many others.. As I live up on a hill overlooking this area I hear all noises from that area. I hear when the Army does testing.
The Intermodal plans to build bridges and railway lines over the Georges river for freight trains right in the old golf links that my home overlooks. This is not fair, and will cause me and many people extreme hardship. The people that make these decisions don't care who or how they affect people. This intermodal will affect tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of people in a bad way. The traffic kaos we have already is going to be unbearable, So too will be unbearable the noise, the dirty pollution and emissions from hundreds of trucks in the area and cars that will move so slowly that it will be almost a car park in Liverpool. We Can't have this! property values will drop, quality of life will suffer for all in this area etc etc. This is not the place to put heavy industry, it is so obvious.
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I object to the intermodel

I strongly object to the proposed Intermodal development at Moorebank. Moorebank cannot support the immensity of this project.
Our roads are at capacity now and the number of trucks make travelling slow and hazardous. We cannot take anymore load on our roads.
Moorebank is in a low lying area and any increase in pollution caused by 10,000 trucks more a day and the operations carried out by the Intermodal 24 hrs and 7 days a week will put Moorebank in the danger zone. Our children,residents and neighbours will be in grave danger of developing poor health in the future.
The noise and disruption generated by the associated works during construction and also upon completion will make Moorebank an undesirable place to live.

This planned development will be detrimental not only to the suburb or Moorebank and other surrounding areas, but also the entire M5 corridor. The drastic increase of heavy vehicles on the roads adjacent to the proposed site, aswell as the main arterial roads nearby will cause quite significant issues with regard to traffic and travel times for regular road users. The areas does not have the sufficient roads infrastructure nor the ability to accommodate required improvements.
Along with roads and traffic issues, the close proximity of the site to such a large number of residences and private dwellings seems rather near sighted and highly inappropriate. The noise such a site would create would create very uncomfortable living conditions for those living nearby.
The final point I'd like to raise is that significant improvements to Port Botany via new cranes and road improvements nearby make this whole development seem unnecessary. Along with the Port a Botany site, Sydney also has another freight terminal at Enfield which is unused. Or such a large sum of public money to be spent on the Enfield site and for it to not be in use seems extremely wasteful and not a correct use of public funds. It would be more appropriate to improve that existing site, not only to save public money, but to utilise it's prime geographic location, which is so close to the middle of metropolitan Sydney itself.