A dream has been crushed. Sydney’s cruise industry has been told emphatically that it cannot use Garden Island on Sydney Harbour as a prospective new cruise terminal – even though the idea makes sense and would delight cruise visitors to Australia. The suggested alternatives are startling.
A new official report rules out Garden Island. The two possible alternative sites for new cruise terminals are both in places that no one wants to cruise to: Molineaux Point in Port Botany or nearby Yarra Bay.
Molineaux Point separates Yarra Bay and Port Botany on the northern side of Botany Bay. It stands next to a liquid gas storage plant and is currently used for freight forwarding and transport and logistics.
Instead of being greeted by the world-renowned, magical vision of Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House, cashed up cruise visitors to Sydney would be treated under the new plan to grungy industrial views of the Kurnell oil terminal and the Port Botany container facility.
Both sites are about 16km from Circular Quay via congested roads.
Sydney badly needs a second cruise terminal east of the Harbour Bridge because new cruise ships are too big to fit under the bridge.
No more. Queen Mary 2 berthed at the Garden Island naval wharves in 2007
Garden Island, the obvious solution, is a Royal Australian Navy facility under Commonwealth control. The Navy will not let it go or share it, even though the strategic wisdom of having Australia’s biggest naval base smack in the middle of the country’s largest city has been called into question. Jervis Bay on the NSW South Coast has been suggested as an alternative (the Navy already runs the HMAS Creswell base there, 180km south of Sydney) – but the Navy will not budge.
The NSW Cruise Development Plan 2018, just released by the NSW Department of Industry, says: “Since the arrival of the Australian Fleet in October 1913, Garden Island has been the Navy’s operational home. Besides history and culture, the Navy values its use of Garden Island for operational reasons. Garden Island is an important cluster of command, technical and support facilities, including the Captain Cook Graving Dock (the largest in the Southern Hemisphere).
“A Sydney base also offers significant advantages for recruiting and retaining sailors and officers.”
The Cruise Industry Reference Group, which has been looking at the best possible location for a new cruise terminal, recommended two Garden Island sites – Garden Island West and North-east Garden Island – for further investigation, “subject to negotiations with the Commonwealth Government”.
The NSW Cruise Development Plan 2018 kills that recommendation stone dead.
It says: “The Commonwealth Government has advised that shared use of Garden Island is not feasible. This is due to the significant challenges in managing berth space and infrastructure alongside expanding Navy operations.
“The NSW Government recognises the strategic and economic importance of Garden Island as an operational base for the Royal Australian Navy, as well as its historical and cultural value for the defence industry and community. Therefore, no sites at Garden Island will be included in the strategic business case.”
Instead, the NSW Government will “undertake a strategic business case for two of the shortlisted sites identified by the Reference Group: Molineaux Point and Yarra Bay”.
A report by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) showed that the cruise industry contributes in excess of AUD 5 billion to the Australian economy, AUD 3.1 billion coming from NSW.
Welcome to beautiful Sydney? The Port Botany terminal
Converting the existing Garden Island to cruise use could have injected as much as AUD 15 billion into Sydney’s economy, proponents argued. Some even said AUD 20 billion. At present, some cruise ships have to go elsewhere because they cannot be accommodated at Sydney’s White Bay or Overseas Passenger Terminal.
Now it seems the lucrative cruise ships may be shunted away from Sydney Harbour altogether to somewhere like Molineaux Point or Yarra Bay.
Other states stand to benefit, and perhaps other destinations in NSW.
The NSW Cruise Development Plan 2018 can be downloaded here.
Written by Peter Needham
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Absolute joke. We’ve got room all around our harbour for the millionaires to park their super yachts. That’s why they scrubbed the terminal at Barrangaroo in favour of mooring for these toys. We had a beautiful location at Woolloomooloo but again the wealthy got all the spots and cruise ships got White Bay, disliked by passengers and residents alike. Now we had Garden Island as the last option. Apparently the navy has no problems with the RAN Heritage Centre being located there, despite needing unsecure ferries dropping off people every day, but is too bull headed to see that they need to either share with cruise ships or move out. But the govt has caved in and our visitors will just have to buy postcards of the harbour now, unless they’re happy to take a bus ride through highly congested roads of up to an hour in each direction. In ten years someone in power will look back and wonder where all the cruise ships have disappeared to.
Absolute joke. We’ve got room all around our harbour for the millionaires to park their super yachts. That’s why they scrubbed the terminal at Barrangaroo in favour of mooring for these toys. We had a beautiful location at Woolloomooloo but again the wealthy got all the spots and cruise ships got White Bay, disliked by passengers and residents alike. Now we had Garden Island as the last option. Apparently the navy has no problems with the RAN Heritage Centre being located there, despite needing unsecure ferries dropping off people every day, but is too bull headed to see that they need to either share with cruise ships or move out. But the govt has caved in and our visitors will just have to buy postcards of the harbour now, unless they’re happy to take a bus ride through highly congested roads of up to an hour in each direction. In ten years someone in power will look back and wonder where all the cruise ships have disappeared to.