Dredging done to death!
Are you wondering why the end of dredging has been announced yet again? So are we!
Today’s Age newspaper (28 July 2010) has reverted to Groundhog day, reporting Dredging done $250m under budget. Likewise, ABC radio news bulletins throughout the previous day (27th July) were madly spruiking that the project had finished and was under budget. Dredging journals and even Lloyds List shipping journal are parroting the same stuff too in on line news bulletins.
But - it’s exactly the same rhetoric we heard last year. The December 2009 newsletter of the Port of Melbourne Corporation and the March 2010 and June 2010 editions since have all spruiked that channel deepening was completed in November 2009 and was “at least $200 million under budget”. See: www.portofmelbourne.com/global/docs/Port-Page-8.pdf
PoMC even erected a statue near the Yarra River in November 2009 to commemorate the occasion. The 9 metre high work was created by a renowned Dutch sculptor (see the article in their December 2009 newsletter in link above). The Age reported channel deepening was complete on 26th November 2009 too, See: ‘Labor hails dredging success, says bay is clean’ quoting Ports Minister Tim Pallas announcing the project was completed “ahead of schedule and more than $200 million under budget”. And of course Mr. Brumby announced it too in his obligatory hard hat in a TV interview in late November 2009. Have they all lost their minds?
We don’t like tripe at the best of times, but reheated several times it’s just awful and smells desperate. But then maybe we are meant to swallow it to divert attention from Minister Pakula’s recent rail fiasco, Minister Pallas’s imminent bull dozing of a heritage listed property so Peninsula Link Freeway can go in a straight line, Minister Madden’s urban growth boundary expansion plans, the undisclosed millions being thrown at Portsea Pier and Beach restoration post dredging etc. etc…….. And of course a state election is nearing.
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