Bass Coast Post
  • Home
    • Recent articles
  • News
    • Point of view
    • View from the chamber
  • Writers
    • Anne Davie
    • Anne Heath Mennell
    • Bob Middleton
    • Carolyn Landon
    • Catherine Watson
    • Christine Grayden
    • Dick Wettenhall
    • Ed Thexton
    • Etsuko Yasunaga
    • Frank Coldebella
    • Gayle Marien
    • Geoff Ellis
    • Gill Heal
    • Harry Freeman
    • Ian Burns
    • Joan Woods
    • John Coldebella
    • Julie Paterson
    • Julie Statkus
    • Kit Sleeman
    • Laura Brearley >
      • Coastal Connections
    • Lauren Burns
    • Liane Arno
    • Linda Cuttriss
    • Linda Gordon
    • Lisa Schonberg
    • Liz Low
    • Marian Quigley
    • Mark Robertson
    • Mary Whelan
    • Meryl Brown Tobin
    • Michael Whelan
    • Mikhaela Barlow
    • Miriam Strickland
    • Natasha Williams-Novak
    • Neil Daly
    • Patsy Hunt
    • Pauline Wilkinson
    • Richard Kemp
    • Sally McNiece
    • Terri Allen
    • Tim Shannon
  • Features
    • Features 2024
    • Features 2023
    • Features 2022
    • Features 2021
    • Features 2020
    • Features 2019
    • Features 2018
    • Features 2017
    • Features 2016
    • Features 2015
    • Features 2014
    • Features 2013
    • Features 2012
  • Arts
  • Local history
  • Environment
  • Nature notes
    • Nature notes
  • A cook's journal
  • Community
    • Diary
    • Courses
    • Groups
    • Stories
  • Contact us

The battle for Western Port

19/9/2023

3 Comments

 
Picture
Successive threats to Western Port have been stopped only by massive public opposition.
Image: Anitra Carmichael, The Current
By Neil Daly

THE arduous journey for champions of Western Port started in 1971 when the Save Western Port Coalition, representing 16 environmental groups, published The Shame of Western Port – Speculator’s Dream … Environmental Nightmare. 

The report was in response to confidential plans by the Westernport Regional Planning Authority to fill in large areas of the bay, build wharves and shipping berths on French Island, and construct two causeways and a tunnel to the mainland.
The Shame of Western Port sank the authority’s secret plans but the threats to Western Port’s natural values have continued ever since, with multiple proposals including for nuclear reactors, oil refineries, a container port and a gas import plant. Each threat has been stopped by massive public opposition.

The latest of many proposals is to dredge the Port of Hastings to facilitate exports of liquid hydrogen to Japan. The first trial shipment left in January 2022. 

For over 52 years, state governments have ignored the people’s case that Western Port and its region is a unique environment: one that should not be handed over to developers and those seeking to urbanise and industrialise its foreshore lands and beyond.

In Has the longest day begun?, I spoke of these matters and of the Western Port groups who had formed a new alliance under the guidance of the Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA).  The outcome of this venture was the publishing of a comprehensive online document: A Strategic Framework for the future of Western Port Bay.  It’s founded on three core pillars: a new strategic plan for Western Port bay; a collaborative management partnership; and a dedicated fund to achieve the plan.

In May 2022, the VNPA presented the strategic framework to the policy advisors representing the Minister for Environment and the Minister for Climate Action, Energy and Resources. 

From the outset, the Western Port Biosphere Reserve Foundation has played a key role in developing the framework.  Support for the plan was bolstered when the four councils bordering Western Port backed the alliance.

Initially, Councillor Rochelle Halstead took up the cause and tabled a notice of motion seeking to encourage the Victorian State Government to implement the framework.  In support of the motion, Councillor Halstead said of Western Port, “It’s imperative that all local governments adjoining it are provided with an overarching plan that provides the vision and direction for community and government, thus ensuring management is conducted in a way that protects it for future generations.”

The motion was passed unanimously at the Bass Coast Shire Council meeting on May 17 this year. 

Since then, Casey, Cardinia and Mornington Peninsula councils have followed suit and passed a similar motion calling on the State Government to implement the framework.  They have now written to the ministers expressing their commitment to the preservation of the marine environment and sustainable development of the Western Port region.

All are still waiting for a reply.

In case the people’s message is still languishing in the Environment Minister’s in-tray, why not send her a personalised postcard?  You could remind her there is no point in repeating history, and that collective stewardship is the way forward if Western Port Country is to survive the challenges of climate change and become a regenerative regional community. 
​
Hopefully the people will not have to resort to clambering up the citadel steps and banging on the drawbridge to get an answer. Ministers, it’s your call.
3 Comments
Christine Grayden link
22/9/2023 12:25:32 pm

One major and very current threat to Western Port which seems to have slipped under many people's radar is the proposal to use Port of Hastings land and Port facilities as a massive depot for transport of offshore wind farm components to the proposed fields in Bass Strait. The report came and went in some of the media very quickly but did include a sentence that Western Port may have to be dredged to accommodate the large vessels required for transporting the wind turbine components. Incidentally the Shame of Western Port was a major document, but not the first time action for Western Port had been taken. Decades before in the 1930s Western Port became an oil importing facility, to which a number of individuals and communities objected. But back then their voices could not be heard and were quickly overtaken by circumstances when World War Two broke out and the naval base's requirements were the major priority. Like you Neil, I would also urge everyone to contact our local member and the ministers for planning, environment and ports. A state election cannot be far off, which means the state government is not likely to make any major policy decisions before then. But we do need to make the health and safety of our Bay a political issue for this electorate. Politicians are not mind readers. They rely on us to be responsible citizens and let them know our concerns loud and clear.

Reply
Bernie McComb
23/9/2023 11:16:17 am

When survival of the Planet is endangered by any new fossil fuel projects, how can any Minister take seriously the proposal for major scale brown coal to hydrogen? Ridiculous concept, completely insane when everybody knows that CCS(carbon capture and storage) is still nothing more than propaganda. No technology works, especially not trees.

Reply
Anne Heath Mennell
23/9/2023 01:57:10 pm

Thank you for this succinct history, Neil.There seems to be no end to the threats, if Christine's comments about supply of turbine components is true. How ironic that something to 'save' the environment might be used to, at least damage, if not destroy, our
precious and vulnerable Western Port.

It is interesting that the name 'Western Port Regional Planning Authority' implicitly recognises that it is a region, a catchment, an eco-system, which is bigger than the water body and its immediate shores.

Reply



Leave a Reply.