Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

Further, on 19 August, in an article by John Lyman on page 4 of the DailyTelegraph headlined, 'Wimpish personal politics put ahead of the national interest', Mr Lyman argued that I had let my 'fear of aircraft blind him'—meaning me—'to the enormous economic benefits in job opportunities he is denying the people of Sydney'. The fact is this. The regulation limiting flights arriving in Sydney between 5 am and 6 am each week to 24 has not been changed by any minister, including me, since it was introduced in 1995. During my time as minister I received no applications for flights outside curfew from curfew constrained destinations.

Further, on 21 August in an article in the DailyTelegraph headed 'Too few flights cater for Chinese', John Lyman accused me of undermining the Chinese tourism boom by failing to strike a deal to allow more flights in. The facts are these. Right now, more than 5,500 unused weekly sites are available to Chinese carriers flying to major Australian airports and further seats are available for flights to airports other than the gateway airports. As minister, I in fact signed off on agreements which tripled capacity with China. The last agreements were signed just last year and we announced new flights to Cairns with China Southern during the recent election campaign.

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