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Baird says container cap a “generous” decision

Despite the government initially denying there was a cap on container ships for the Port of Newcastle, it has tried to put a positive spin on the agreement by claiming it was a smart and generous decision.
Premier Mike Baird, who visited Newcastle this week, said the agreement was a sound one that married with the state government’s overall strategy when dealing with ports, according to the Newcastle Herald.
“There’s a massive requirement for infrastructure to support,” he said. “There’s rail and roads, which is a huge burden on taxpayers across the state. So it makes a lot of sense to be strategic in the allocation of capital.”
Baird believes investing in Port Kembla and Port Botany is more important than Newcastle because of the ‘logistic chain’ with regard to the former two ports.
“We have put a very generous capacity into the agreements they can continue here at the Newcastle and they can grow at 6 per cent a year,” he says. “The economy grows at about 3 per cent if it’s at trend [so] there’s double economic growth that can come in here in terms of containers.
Baird was also bullish stating that the Port of Newcastle’s time would come with regard to its capacity.
“In the not too distant future you’ll have a huge capacity for a container terminal here in addition to an economically sensible approach to investing in the infrastructure required to support containers full stop,” he says

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