Our columnist reckons we’re “bloody hopeless” because we didn’t run his column last week, and the first he knew about it was when he picked up a copy to read it over his morning coffee. What our fiesty Dutchman hadn’t heard was that we reckoned it was a cracker and deserved a good splash on the front page (which was already filled) so we held it back. Hope today’s espresso is a good one, mate, and here’s:

RECENT media reports claim the new container port at Kwinana won’t be operational until at least 2042; so a long 18 years – nearly two decades – from now. 

That made me think about the port saga, and all the plans for expanding or moving Fremantle Port since I moved to WA in 1985.

Looking back at it all, there were many plans. Some were fantastic, some fanciful, and others were farcical, incompetent and unresolved.

There were plans for an overflow container island near the Naval Shacks, with a slip road straight to Stock Road, even before the flawed Roe 8 plans. 

Roe 8 would have seen a huge highway finishing at Stirling Highway, because the Barnett government could not find a solution to cross the Swan River.

Ideas to build a tunnel or a trench were dismissed, as experts claimed that the decline and incline would be too steep for container trucks, and hazardous goods are not allowed in tunnels.

A railway loop at Rous Head with a rail bridge over Tydeman Road was constructed to take the pressure off local roads, but freight on rail could not be increased substantially, because container stacking was not possible because of the old rail bridge over the Swan River.

So the Barnett government decided to sell and privatise Fremantle port.

Millions of dollars were wasted on commercial lawyers, shipping and traffic experts, etc, but the Liberals were booted out at the election and left WA with billions of dollars in debt. 

The new McGowan Labor government was not interested in Roe 8 or selling the port, so sanity prevailed for a few years, until the Westport Taskforce was announced.

Westport was established to investigate where a new port could be built and replace the Fremantle one. 

They claimed to be open to all suggestions and options, but it was very clear from the outset that the outcome would be, as the government wished; a new container port at Kwinana in Cockburn Sound. 

Suggestions that a new port could be built between Fremantle and Geraldton were just a smokescreen, as was the idea that the Bunbury port could be expanded and take over from Fremantle. 

It was never going to happen! Kwinana was the aim and the outcome.

Most people in the Freo community did not want to lose our working port and questioned the necessity and urgency of it. 

Experts, including the Maritime Union of Australia, claimed that Fremantle port could still grow and expand for another 25 years, up to 2050, and that the predicted growth of container trade was unrealistic. 

That appears to be correct, with a media report two weeks ago claiming container trade has not increased anywhere near the estimations of the government.

Anyway, Westport kept going, did all those beautiful things, such as community and stakeholders meetings, and were really, really listening to all of us. Yes, sure. 

Finally and predictably they stated that the best location for a new port would be Kwinana. 

The plans include a large seawall to protect ships at berth from storms, and extending Anketel Road, so that it can handle the huge increase of container trucks.

Environmental experts, including Freo Greens MLC Brad Pettitt, fear that substantial damage would be done to the fragile Cockburn Sound, and that new proposed roads in the Kwinana area would be a bigger environmental disaster than the abandoned Roe 8 would have been.

The state government dismissed all concerns and protests. 

A new Kwinana port was a fait accompli as far as the McGowan, and now Cook, governments were concerned, so they established the Future for Fremantle committee. 

It was to investigate how to develop the massive Fremantle Port precinct from Victoria Quay in the south, all the way to Rous Head at the Indian Ocean, when the working port moved to Kwinana.

Again there was a lot of community consultation, and the outcome is that we have been given three options for the development, one of them with substantial high rise. 

The experts are talking about accommodating some 50,000 people there, plus offices, shops, schools, churches, parks, etc.

But there is only one way in and out of Rous Head, via Beach and Tydeman roads. 

There was even a suggestion at the five-day intensive consultation session in the Maritime Museum that Rous Head could become a car free precinct. 

Tell that to the mums and dads who have to get their kids to sporting events on weekends.

Then again, by the time the area is developed in 40-50 years from now, everyone might travel by drone, and roads will no longer be needed. Beam me up Scotty!

Suggestions that it might not be wise to build so close to the ocean because of climate change and rising sea levels were met with a shrug of the shoulders. 

That North Mole Road gets swamped by waves in winter is apparently no big deal. We just build houses a bit further back from the ocean. 

That same attitude applied to the likelihood that Beach Road might have to be moved further inland by 100 metres at least, because of the beach erosion at the Port and Leighton beaches.

But then plans were announced to build a new Fremantle traffic bridge, plus a new railway bridge. 

Why was the latter needed when the working port would be moved down south? 

Those plans too ended up in the trash, the initial designs for the traffic bridge were typical Main Roads crap, and only heavy community criticism made the state government change plans again. 

Freo will now be getting a much more attractive bridge, and the superfluous new railway bridge has been scrapped

I believe it is fair to question why we have started planning to develop Rous Head when the new port at Kwinana is not at all a certainty. It will need approval from the state and federal Environmental Protection Authority.

One also needs to question if what we plan today for the area will still be relevant two or more decades from now. 

Technology is changing and improving at massive speed, and lifestyle requirements are also changing fast.

It would be prudent to slow down and stop wasting so much money. 

Common sense should prevail, but will it? I have my doubts.

Roel Loopers/FREOVIEW