Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

All right, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for that ruling. I will return to the subject. I will just make one statement in relation to preselections which the member for Canning was referring to: he is no stranger to controversy himself in this regard, so if he wants to get up and make comments about preselections he needs to look at exactly where he came from and how he got into this place.

Another aspect of the commercialisation of airports has been the financial relationship between airports and local governments. The government has historically failed to require some airport lessees to meet the terms of their leases in that it has not required lessees to make rate equivalent payments to local government authorities as clearly specified in leases. Perth Airport refused to pay its liability to the City of Belmont in my electorate for some time. I worked hard with the City of Belmont to ensure that Perth Airport coughed up. I am pleased to say that it has and that the council has received its rate equivalent payment both this year and for the outstanding period last year. But I am concerned that this saga will go on unless the government addresses this very real issue into the future. Despite repeated requests to do so, the government has still refused to require the airport to pay its liability. It keeps talking about negotiating with airport owners but, in reality, the lease does not allow for that; it insists on people making their payments.

The government took a deliberate decision not to require the airport to fulfil its obligations under the lease in this particular case; it just said it should negotiate. That needs to be sorted out. I believe that this inaction deserves to be condemned. It is no wonder that local governments have little confidence that the government will uphold the terms of the leases. The minister has the power to take action to redress this situation and he needs to do so. But I am not convinced that the government has done enough to address these sorts of conflicts between airport lessees and local councils when it comes to rate equivalent payments and the interpretation of the obligations in this regard when it comes to airport leases.

In conclusion, I again congratulate the shadow minister for transport on his balanced and sensible approach to this bill. He provides excellent leadership and direction to members of the House on important issues, and he and his staff should be congratulated. I share his view that, while we have some amendments which would act to improve the management of airports, there are many aspects of this bill which should be commended. We do have concerns about the appropriate use of airport land and the government’s approach to planning in this regard, and nowhere is this more strongly felt than in my electorate of Swan.

See this speech in context