Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For members who have airports in their electorates the Airports Amendment Bill 2006 is a very important piece of legislation. In my own instance, Avalon Airport—which is currently hosting the Avalon Air Show 2007, which commenced today; and I hope, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be visiting my electorate to participate with us in that air show—is a significant community asset currently operated privately by the Linfox group. I do not propose to deal in minute detail with the technical amendments enshrined in this legislation but to canvass the more general propositions that, in my view, ought to underpin legislation of this type which governs the operation of the 22 federal airports that have been privatised.

It goes without saying that the domestic and international gateways that are Australia’s capital city and regional airports are crucial to the ongoing performance of the national and regional economies. Not only are these airports important to Australia’s domestic and international tourism industry; they are important to regional economic development and critical to connecting families throughout the length and breadth of this vast continent. They are significant employers in their own right and they are unique in the way they have developed to the important position they now occupy in the social and economic life of the nation. Therefore, the detailed matters contained in the bill are worthy of considerable scrutiny and I hope that the government takes on board the amendments that are being proposed by the opposition in the spirit in which they have been advanced by the shadow minister, the member for Batman. As was noted by the shadow minister in his speech in the second reading debate, this legislation is but another example of sloppy legislating by this tired government. Given the consultation with the industry that has occurred on these matters since 2004, it is somewhat surprisingly that it has taken the government till 2007 to bring this legislation before the parliament. I will leave the industry to draw its own conclusions about the competence of the government in this matter.

As I stated earlier, while the legislation deals with many detailed matters relating to the ongoing development of airports, there are several important propositions that should underpin the detail of the bill. Firstly, airport operators, the industry generally and the community ought not to lose sight of the fact that we are dealing here with community assets that have enormous economic and social impacts in their communities. Secondly, airport operators need to keep in mind that, although commercial and retail developments may be considered desirable for profitability reasons for the owner in the short term, the long-term future of such facilities for aeronautical related development should be paramount in view of the first point I have made. Thirdly, airports are an important part of communities and, as such, there must always be a high level of consultation by those airport operators with local communities and particularly local government authorities in relation to aircraft noise, retail developments, traffic flows and environmental matters. Fourthly, it is absolutely important that airport development master plans are integrated with local government land use and other planning in the airport area. Fifthly, there must be a firm but sensitive framework of regulation from the federal government and other local government bodies to ensure an appropriate balance is always kept between the community’s needs and the owner’s plans to grow. I am sure there are other propositions that might form the basis of discussion, but I am sure that if these ones form the framework for consideration of the technical detail then a measured and balanced outcome can be achieved, given the competing interests.

According to the information provided by the minister in introducing the legislation and the supplementary material accompanying the presentation of the bill to the House, the bill amends the Airports Act to loosen the restriction on airlines owning smaller non-core regulated airports; incorporates explicitly the right of airport lessees to undertake non-aeronautical development as long as it is consistent with relevant airport master plans; sets out a purpose statement for airport master plans, ensuring a strategic focus, public information about intentions and land use compatibility; requires Australian noise exposure forecasts and flight paths to be included in master plans, and new master plans to be developed if noise forecasts change; allows for noise forecasts to extend beyond the 20-year planning horizon; reduces time lines for public comment on drafts and minor variations of master plans, major development plans and environmental strategies, bringing them broadly into line with the planning and environmental approval processes in state, territory and local government jurisdictions; reduces time lines for ministerial approval from just under 13 weeks to between 10 and 11 weeks; requires free availability of information on airport websites; introduces a stop-clock provision in the ministerial approval time line if the minister requires additional information from the airport lessee company; requires the airport lessee company to demonstrate how it has due regard to public comment rather than simply stating that it has due regard; requires the minister to have regard to the extent to which a plan achieves the purpose of a final master plan; lifts the dollar threshold for a major airport development from $10 million to $20 million; allows the minister to determine that the combined cost of consecutive or concurrent projects or extensions be included when deciding whether the cost of a proposal exceeds the threshold for major developments; sets out a purpose statement for major development plans to ensure they are consistent with the airport lease and master plan, and requires the plan to include information in this regard; requires the impact of a development on flight paths to be stated; and sets out a purpose statement for a final environmental strategy to ensure all operations are carried out in accordance with relevant environmental legislation and standards.

I have outlined those amendments because there is much that is being proposed by the government in this bill that we would agree with. However, in our view, the government has not gone far enough in some of these provisions. Indeed, in amending some of the consultative provisions, we here on the floor of this House reflect the concern of our communities that this government is once again using legislation to weaken the process of consultation with local communities, local government and other jurisdictions in matters relating to planning and land use at airports. The shadow minister has already detailed some of our concerns in the amendments that we are proposing, and I would urge the government to consider those amendments in good faith, because they have been made with the interests of improving this legislation.

I note that the technical amendments that are being proposed by the shadow minister are to improve due process under the act and to make the minister more accountable for the decisions that he makes on these matters. Given the high degree of incompetence already displayed by the minister in this portfolio—and, I must say, in previous portfolios where I have had a close association with the minister—I view the amendments by the shadow minister and the opposition as timely and very necessary indeed. The reality is that the minister has failed to adequately consider local government land use plans in making recent decisions about commercial developments at airports. The member for Swan was on his feet previously in this debate and outlined in detail a litany of the minister’s sins in the state of Western Australia in that regard. So this legislation needs considerable tightening of the sort that is being proposed by the shadow minister.

As I stated earlier, airports are community assets and they must be managed by lessees within that framework. In Avalon Airport, in my electorate, the Geelong community has an asset that has the potential to substantially change the economic structure of the region. But I do regret that over the past decade not enough has been made of it in an economic sense for the region. Like all airports, the growth at Avalon has not come without its problems, and it is those matters that this legislation is attempting to address. As the local federal member, my office has at certain times borne the brunt of community concern and aggravation over certain operations at the airport in the past.

Concerns about consultative processes are why this bill is so important to people in my electorate. I commend the Lara community and the Avalon Airport management, ably led by Tim Anderson, for setting up consultative mechanisms that appear in recent years to have mitigated many of those concerns and resolved many issues surrounding the airport’s operations and use. The continued growth of Avalon Airport might be a central focus of the economic development of the region, but no-one must lose sight of the fact that working families live in its environs and they are entitled to the quiet enjoyment of their homes as the primary place where they raise their children.

Avalon has grown quite dramatically in recent times, and I refer members to the many speeches I have made in this parliament relating to its potential. When one considers the growth of a community asset such as this airport, one must also balance that with the needs of the residents who live in close proximity to it. Avalon is situated at the juxtaposition of several critical regional infrastructure assets: the Port of Geelong, the national standard gauge railway, the Princes Freeway and other major Victorian road networks into the Western District.

We have seen recent developments at the airport that certainly relate to the provisions of this bill. The aircraft refurbishment and maintenance functions have been restored at Avalon Airport after this government came to power and decimated the workforce at the old AeroSpace Technologies of Australia, when we saw employment decline from about 1,000 until it almost disappeared altogether. The decision by Qantas to locate its maintenance facility there has seen the regrowth of that employment and we now have some 850 people directly employed in aircraft maintenance. That is why we view with some concern the bid by Airline Partners Australia, the consortium for Qantas, and the impacts that it might have on Jetstar and, of course, Qantas’s maintenance facilities at Avalon. These are very important matters of concern to the Geelong community.

The airport maintenance facilities might need to expand in the future. This bill is calling us to take cognisance of the view that airports are largely airport-driven; they are not large commercial developments on which supermarkets and other facilities ought to be built. That is the substance of this particular bill: concern that commercial developments might at some future stage impinge on the potential of an airport facility to grow and to service a community in employment and in a general sense.

We have been fortunate at Avalon in that Jetstar has located at Avalon. Once again, this would be the type of development that one would want at an airport facility, not so much a massive commercial and retail development but an airport related development, one which has already brought over a million people in passenger traffic through that passenger terminal at Avalon. It has placed Jetstar in a very important position in the medium- to low-budget market in the airline industry in Australia and in the region. We have airline pilot training and aerospace developments, with a significant rise in employment in the latter area. There is significant potential for Avalon as an airfreight facility and, of course, we have the Avalon air show, which opened today. This will play host to some 200,000 people and has exhibitors from all around the world coming to Avalon for the trade display and general defence and civil aviation displays at the airport.

It is an extremely important facility and it is one we hope to grow. The growth of that facility has not been according to the timetable I would have liked. Some 10 years ago I was talking about the potential of this facility and its capacity to generate employment and to substantially change the economic structure of the Geelong region from our dependence on textile, clothing and footwear manufacturing as well as car manufacturing. Unfortunately we lost the election in 1996 and with that loss went the plans that we already had in place to develop this facility in the manner which I have briefly outlined. I have visited other airports around the world and it makes logical sense to me that Avalon ought to be the second airport in Victoria. Along with Melbourne Airport and the infrastructure linkages—certainly the highway and the rail linkages—we ought to see the whole economic development of the region in terms of two airports rather than one in Melbourne.

This particular piece of legislation relates very specifically to the master plans that are in place for both Melbourne Airport, I guess, and Avalon Airport and how these airports can grow in consultation with their communities, taking account of their communities’ needs and concerns and the strategic planning that has already gone into land use around those airports. We have a wonderful asset. Very rarely do you have an airport located within some 35 minutes of the CBD of a major world city like Melbourne with many thousands of acres in its environs and with a runway which is—and don’t quote me on this—some 1,750 metres in length. It can certainly take the biggest airfreighters and passenger aircraft known to man. So we are strategically positioned to play our part in the economic growth of the nation. I am very pleased that we have at the moment an enlightened management at Avalon Airport who do take into account the community’s concerns in these matters. We will be supporting the legislation, but I ask the government to take cognisance of the amendment that we have proposed and to support it in the spirit in which it has been presented.

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