Sydney Ports Corporation CEO Grant Gilfillan has sought to reassure stakeholders that the Port Botany Logistics Improvement Strategy (PBLIS) process will continue unaffected, regardless of the resignation of NSW’s shortest-serving Ports Minister Paul MacLeay.
Paul McLeay has resigned after admitting to the Premier Kristina Keneally that he had been using a Parliamentary computer to visit gambling and adult websites. He was appointed Ports Minister on 9 December last year and served less than nine months in the position. His predecessor, Joe Tripodi, had served as Ports minister from February 2006 to November 2009, when he was unceremoniously sacked.
Transport and Logistics News has received a number of concerned messages from stakeholders about the effect of the change of ministers will have on the Port Botany reforms. Paul Zalai, manager of freight and business operations at the Customs Brokers & Forwarders Council of Australia, summed up the feeling: “… we hope that this does not jeopardise the release of the much-anticipated Port Botany Landside Improvement Strategy (PBLIS) draft regulations. We wait with interest to see how the NSW Premier reacts to this unfortunate predicament.”
Sydney Ports Corporation CEO Grant Gilfillan said: “Sydney Ports Corporation remains firmly committed to the ongoing implementation of the Port Botany Landside Improvement Strategy reforms as outlined in the NSW Government’s response to IPART.
“Sydney Ports is on track with the publicly stated timetable for execution of the landside reforms as supported by industry through regulation announced earlier this year.
“Work is well advanced on this major project and we do not envisage there will be any change to what we are going to do and when we are going to do it,” he said.