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port kembla

Placename
port kembla
Layer
Poetry in Handard Test
Type
Other

Details

Latitude
-34.46346
Longitude
150.90148269117583
Start Date
1966-03-23
End Date
1966-03-23

Description

parliament.no: 25
session.no: 1
period.no: 5
chamber: REPS
page.no: 524.0
speaker: Mr CONNOR
speaker.id: K0O
title: Second Reading
electorate: Cunningham
type: bill
state: Not Available
party: Not Available
role: Not Available
incumbent party: False
poet: Not Available
poem: Not Available

Sources

ID
td152a

Extended Data

index
1197.0
para
Today, bulk carriers of 50,000 tons are commonplace. Bulk carriers of 80,000 tons are commonplace and, in relation to the petroleum trade, one Japanese vessel is of 150,000 tons dead weight and another one, the " Idematsu Maru ", is on the stocks in Japan and is soon to be commissioned with a dead weight tonnage of 205,000 and with a draught, incidentally, of 56 feet. No major port in Australia could accommodate it at the present time. It is true that most of these tankers stand off shore, couple up to a pipeline and discharge their cargo by pump, but the point that I want to make is that today these super tankers, whose existence is, in the main, due to the closure of the Suez Canal during its takeover by Egypt and the need to get economies of scale by the building of super vessels, are capable of making remarkable - even fantastic - economies in transport. There is no earthly reason why we should not take advantage of bulk carriers for the transport of our iron ore outwards and, for such time as we continue to import it, petroleum inwards. The bulk carrier is the vessel of the future. To take a typical case, I mention that the Japanese super tanker, the " Tokyo Maru " of 150,000 tons dead weight, has a crew of 29. It is as fully automated as any vessel can be. There is no earthly reason why we should not be entering into that field in relation to overseas shipping. The matter goes further. It is not just a matter of building one or two bulk carriers of that size. I am informed, credibly, that there are proposals for tankers of even 300,000 tons capacity to be built. We live in a new age and it is time the Government took a new approach to this problem. It is not good enough for us to live in the past. At the present time there is no port in Australia which is capable of handling the conventional heavy cargo freighters which are being built for economies of scale. Let us consider only the steel industry. If we are going to have ore carriers of 100,000 tons capacity heaving to off the north western coast of Western Australia we will need to have sufficient capacity in our harbours at Newcastle and Port Kembla to deal with them. The whole approach at the present time with the division of authority and responsibility between the States and the Commonwealth Government can lead only to an intensification of existing chaos or, in the words of the poet, of confusion worse confounded. Yesterday there was an announcement by the Maritime Services Board in Sydney of the proposal for New South Wales port reconstructions for a ten year period. This is highly relevant to the activities of the Australian National Line. The harbour of Sydney is one of the best in the world; the port and the port facilities are among the worst, lt is a revelation to look at that port, to examine it and, particularly, to remember the scathing words in the report of Mr. Commissioner Basten in 1952 in which he seriously queried the advisability of continuing to redevelop the port of Sydney and asked whether in point of fact it would be better to consider the establishment of an alternative port where there were not the disadvantages, and particular disadvantages, of an absence of rail links. I should like to cite to the House that only 37 of the 120 shipping berths in Sydney have rail connections. Worse than that, we are back in the days of the First Fleet when Sydney Cove - Circular Quay - was naturally the main centre for shipping to tie up and to discharge its cargo. Today, on that peninsula between Darling Harbour and Woolloomooloo, we have all the traffic problems of the second largest white city in the British Commonwealth. Yet the Maritime Services Board proposes to redevelop certain of those wharves. In certain cases it hopes to provide as much as six acres of space for the motor trucks which will come there, but it can provide no solution to the traffic problems of the inner city or of Sydney itself, problems which have already attacked and substantially reduced its retail shopping trade and problems which will intensify.