[Greens-Media] Tas Greens_Bartlett Must Take Responsibility for Ports Fiasco_T Morris MP

[greens at parliament.tas.gov.au]

BARTLETT MUST ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR STRATEGIC PORTS POLICY FAILURE

Tim Morris MP
Greens Infrastructure spokesperson

Thursday, 20 August 2009
Contact: State Parliamentary Offices of the Tasmanian Greens, (03) 6233
8300

www.tas.greens.org.au


The Tasmanian Greens today said that the Bartlett Labor government is in
serious disarray following the revelation that the Infrastructure
Minister's Department was unaware of the involvement of TasPorts' Burnie
Port in the deal to transfer ANL's container business from Bell Bay
which has undermined the government's key policy to develop Bell Bay
Port as a strategic entry container freight point for the State.

Greens Infrastructure spokesperson Tim Morris MP said that Premier David
Bartlett must take responsibility for the debacle which has now resulted
in a major policy failure by his government, and queried whether he
could still have confidence in his Infrastructure Minister, Graeme
Sturges, given that this latest debacle over container freight being
lost from Bell Bay is the latest in a long list of serious failings of
this Minister.

"Minister Sturges' disengagement and disinterest in the need for a
comprehensive port strategy has now placed $150 million of federal
funding for Bell Bay in jeopardy, and also poses a serious threat to the
long term viability of sea freight," Mr Morris said.

"Compounding this deeply worrying state of affairs is the fact that the
Premier also appears to fail to grasp the significance of this problem,
and instead of demanding that his Minister pulls his finger out, explain
how he got the state into this situation and detail a plan to fix it, Mr
Bartlett has gone into denial."

"Tasmania needs the Premier to state clearly his government's strategic
plan and which port is his government's preferred port of entry, as
there is more chance of refloating the Titanic than there is of the
Infrastructure Minister being able to provide this important
information."

"For David Bartlett to try and convince the public that he thinks his
Infrastructure Minister is doing a good job then he has just revealed
the extremely low standards that the Premier sets for his Ministers,
given that Mr Sturges had no idea about the breach of the strategic
ports strategy at the time, and no plan now to recover from the
situation."







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