Don’t Let Melbourne Become A Backwater Like Adelaide

I have to wonder what South Australians think of this:

VICTORIAN Premier John Brumby has warned Melburnians they risk living in a “backwater” like Adelaide if Victoria is not allowed to push ahead with a plan to deepen a channel in Port Phillip Bay.

Mr Brumby said today the public should understand how vital the $1 billion dredging project was.

“This is very important to Melbourne, it’s very important to Victoria,” he said.

“If you want Melbourne to be a backwater, if you want Melbourne eventually to be an Adelaide – as someone described it the other day – well, don’t do this project, and Melbourne will just die a slow death.” [AAP]

The dredging project is needed because the world’s ships are becoming larger and Port Phillip Bay needs deeper channels to support the size of these ships. The Age has a really good interactive media site about the project here.

The greenies as usual are out protesting. These people protest absolutely everything here and seem to hold back government project after government project around here. The Sea Shepherd eco-loons are heading back to Melbourne after thier misadventures in the Antarctic, maybe they can attack the Dutch dredging ship as well and see what happens.