Around 250 residents of Little River, a small community near Werribee, have protested against a corporate giant’s plan to build a multi-billion-dollar freight terminal next to western grasslands and upstream from internationally significant wetlands.
Pacific National has lodged an application to build a freight terminal on a 550-hectare site that would handle two million shipping containers a year.
The nearby town of Little River, with a population of 1400, has formed an action group and more than 5,000 people have signed a petition opposing the freight terminal which would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Grassy Plains Network, part of the Victorian National Parks Association, the National Trust of Australia and a leading ecologist are concerned about the loss of rare volcanic grasslands and native animals.
- The hub would cost between $3 to 5 billion and take 25 years to build, starting in 2026 (if approved). It would be 25 metres high and include new road and rail links.
- Pacific National, owned by an international consortium which includes US investment fund GIP, Canada’s Pension Plan Investment Board and China’s CIC, is negotiating with the Malaysian landowners to develop the terminal.
- The project needs state and federal sign-off.
- The terminal would sit on a green wedge, identified by the Victorian Planning and Environmental Act 1987, as a buffer between Melbourne and regional Victoria. The construction of houses is not allowed on green wedges, but some industry is.
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Legalise Cannabis MP David Ettershank says a mega-freight terminal does not belong on one of Melbourne’s 12 green wedges.
“We don’t need another foreign multi-national carving up precious conservation land for company profit,” Mr Ettershank said.
“These green wedges were set aside in the 1970s because Australians value the natural environment. Now it’s crunch time, are we going to protect these environmental buffers or just build and build to the edges of our farms and national parks?
“Nobody wants the gateway to the You Yangs turned into an industrial wasteland, pushing thousands of additional trucks through the western suburbs and a small town.
This could set a dangerous precedent for all of Melbourne’s green wedges.
“The logic of developing this site is largely non-existent – it was designed to be close to the Western Intermodal Freight Terminal at Truganina, which has been deferred indefinitely and the Outer Metro Ring Road which is not even on the development radar.
“We call on the Allan Government to live up to its conservation commitments and show Pacific National the door.”
Proposal threatens critically endangered native animals
Local residents have photographed the endangered Growling Grass Frog in Little River, and a Victorian departmental survey has found critically endangered Golden Sun Moths on neighboring land. Other threatened animals like the Striped Legless Lizard and Fat-tailed Dunnarts have been seen nearby. Wedge-tail Eagles are nesting on the site.
Grassland ecologist Dr Megan O’Shea said it doesn’t make sense to place a freight terminal in an environmentally sensitive area.
“A massive freight hub will sever the link between Western Grassland Reserve and the internationally recognised Ramsar wetlands of Port Phillip Bay, impacting on the threatened plants and animals,” Dr O’Shea said.
“We should be improving the habitat between these areas, not destroying it. The principle of avoidance is the best option. Road verges leading to the site are known to support significant stands of remnant native vegetation – these will be impacted by increased traffic, noise and light pollution.”
Rare grasslands would be destroyed
Grassy Plains Network facilitator Adrian Marshall said the freight terminal would impact the equivalent of around 75 football fields (some 40h) of rare volcanic plain grassland and sit on a river system feeding into Ramsar wetlands.
“99 per cent of Victoria’s native grasslands have been destroyed. Why remove more?” Dr Marshall said.
‘In addition to the loss of the temperate grassland, we’d also lose over 1.3 hectares of Seasonal Herbaceous Wetland and some 300 Large Fruited Groundsel – a type of native daisy.
“Also, a fire or toxic spill at the terminal could feed into the western Ramsar wetlands, recognised as internationally significant. These wetlands have large numbers of waterbirds, including migratory shorebirds from Siberia and a breeding colony of the Australian Pelican.
“There has not been a proper environmental assessment of the site. What is the logic of putting a freight terminal there?”
‘The freight hub would kill our town’ – Little River Action Group
Little River Action Group President Adrian Hamilton said if the terminal is built, 1500 trucks would pass through the area every day, along with freight trains on the proposed 15.5 metre rail overpass.
“This freight terminal will bring significant noise, light pollution and fumes emissions to our door,” Mr Hamilton said.
“It makes no sense that residential development is banned on the green wedge, but they are proposing an industrial freight monolith in the centre of a fragile and threatened ecosystem.
“In the 1970s government put aside these green wedges around Melbourne to help keep the city’s air clean. The green wedges are also designed to buffer western Victoria’s farmland from urban contaminants.
“Little River is surrounded by green wedge, we moved here knowing that this land would not be developed. This freight terminal would kill our town.”
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