All disturbingly quiet on the Western Freight Bypass front

A major sleeping issue overdue to burst from the seams of state government secrecy is the looming fracas over a Western Freight Rail Bypass.

This infrastructure proposal for a freight rail line from a point south of Newcastle to the Kooragang industrial area has been around for a long time – a Newcastle council report back in 2012 identified it as “a longstanding project” for the state government.

The idea has lots going for it: it would make freight rail transport more efficient, free up capacity constraints on the current rail line for the possible expansion of passenger rail services, create opportunities for port industry diversification (including a possible future container terminal), cut waiting times at urban rail crossings (such as the infamous Adamstown gates), and reduce the exposure of many Newcastle residents to rail noise and dust pollution.

The concept is supported by groups as diverse as the Hunter Business Chamber and The Greens.

But don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard much about it.

Successive Labor and Coalition state governments have applied their standard practice of talking big but doing little about real public consultation on such projects – except with the anointed few admitted into the tent due to their ability to curry favour or wield influence with whichever party happens to be in power.

The rest of us are afforded brief glimpses into how this system works in the occasional ICAC hearing, usually stimulated by some brave whistle-blower or shrewd investigative journalist. But we know it’s just the tip of an iceberg.

Unsurprisingly, this system creates suspicion and distrust among those who find out about government decisions well after they’ve been effectively made, and who don’t fall for the cursory and tokenistic formal “public consultation” charade that government agencies go through so they can tick the “community consultation” box before announcing what they already knew was going to happen.

Think the Newcastle rail line, or the Fourth Coal Terminal (T4), or the UrbanGrowth/GPT CBD tower development, all currently going through their particular phases in the ritual.

The Western Freight Rail Bypass may be the next addition to that list. 

The sleeping controversy here isn’t so much the idea itself, which enjoys broad support among the groups that do know about it.

The fight will be over the particular route that the bypass should take.

Rumours are rife that the state government is now actively considering route options, though they’ve said nothing publicly.

One option apparently under consideration would have serious implications for two major community-based projects: the Green Corridor and the Richmond Vale Rail Trail.

The Green Corridor comprises the connected network of coastal, wetland, bushland and forest ecosystems that run from Stockton Bight southwest to the Watagans, taking in the Stockton Bight coastal dunes and Tomago sandbeds; the Fullerton Cove, Kooragang Island and Hexham wetlands; the Tank Paddock and Blue Gum Hills bushlands; and the Mount Sugarloaf, Watagans and Wollemi forests, most of which are part of our national park estate.

The project is based on the view that, in nature, these systems – often seen and treated as separate – are actually a single, highly integrated ecosystem, and that preserving these connections is crucial to their sustainability.

While its focus is mostly biodiversity protection, the Green Corridor also has significant economic benefits for important local industries such as fishing and tourism.

The Richmond Vale Rail Trail project comprises the 28km former rail corridor from Hexham to Pelaw Main, south of Kurri, for use as a cycling and walking trail, with associated recreational and tourist benefits.

The Green Corridor Coalition (an alliance of more than 50 environment and conservation groups) is calling on the state government to agree to criteria for the bypass route that would protect both these projects.

I’ll keep you posted – hopefully before yet another state government fait accompli that puts profits and vested interests before people and the environment.