"It seems that the standard answer to both the environmental and economic problems with the channel deepening is to 'monitor' them", said Ms Pennicuik.

"With the giant dredger the Queen of the Netherlands, sitting in the Port with its meter ticking over at $250,000 dollars a day, and new costs associated with the latest environmental management plan, the cost of channel deepening is already exceeding $969 million. The bill for the project will tick over $1 billion any day now and it won’t stop there", she said.

"The best the government can come up with is a mere $2 billion return over 20 years, although just who will receive any such return is unclear."

"With the bill likely to blow out to more than $1 billion before too long, the question is 'at what stage does this project become economically unviable, if it’s not already?' " Ms Pennicuik asked.

"It’s appalling that dredging is about to begin and we still don’t know how much it will cost or who will pay for it. The government has never put forward anything more than bald assertions to justify channel deepening. That’s why I have moved to have the economic case for channel deepening
assessed by the new upper house Committee on Finance and Public Administration", she said.

The cost of channel deepening has been rising exponentially.In 2001, the cost was estimated at around $230m, in 2004, it rose from $337m in June to $545 m in September, in March 2007 the Port said it would cost $763 million and the latest cost estimate – made before the latest version of the Environmental Management Plan was released, is now estimated by the government to be $969 million.

"The government has always maintained that its support for channel deepening is dependent on a sound financing strategy, which has never been sighted", she added.

Further information: Sue Pennicuik 0407 000 270