Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not going to talk about Western Sydney Airport, but I am going to talk about why the Airports Amendment Bill 2016 has a lot of importance. It's actually got a lot of importance when it comes to access to airports. We spend so much time thinking about flight routes and flight paths in our cities, but there's a reason aeroplanes have to fly over cities: they have to land at those airports.

A lot of those airports play a very critical role for the people I represent when it comes to their health. Across the electorate of Mallee, the range of Air Ambulance helicopters is somewhat limited. That's just a physical limitation because of fuel. If you were flying from Essendon Airport you could get to Bendigo, but you certainly couldn't make it to Mildura without having to refuel and come back. So, because helicopter range is a limiting factor for health delivery in Victoria, we have to have fixed-wing aircraft that they need to land on an airstrip. Air Ambulance run a King Air B200. The Flying Doctor Service are running the Pilatus PC-12. Essentially, the King Airs are coming in and out of Essendon Airport, and I have been concerned that Essendon Airport, whilst it's a very strategic airport for us, has allowed more and more development. We need to be very careful that, when we think about the master plans for airports, we ensure they keep their primary focus—which is to ensure that they are available for aircraft to land in and land in safely.

To give an idea of the scale of the flights, we would have four aircraft a day coming out of Mildura, taking someone who might have a premature baby to a hospital in Melbourne, taking a victim of a car crash, taking a person who might have had a heart attack. That's four flights a day coming out of one town. Out of the township of Horsham we have three a day flying down to Melbourne, and out of the township of Swan Hill there are three a day on average.

For those who don't know, I am a pilot myself. I own a good 177RG Cessna, one of the best light sport aircraft ever built—a nice Cessna with a Lycoming 200 horsepower fuel-injected engine, retractable gear and a constant-speed prop. It gets along at about 150 knots. When I am flying that plane, I am constantly coming across air ambulances flying across my electorate. So I see just how important this is. What we don't want is to get to a stage where we allow growth that doesn't match up with our national interests—growth that inhibits the opportunities to be landing at Essendon. In that case, air ambulances would have to go Moorabbin Airport, and I don't think that would be an acceptable outcome for the people of Victoria. The difference in congestion and distance you would have with getting land transport from the air ambulance in Moorabbin through to a hospital in central Melbourne could sometimes be the difference between life and death.

I commend the government for having a very proactive role in this and for saying that, when there is a master plan, they are going to have a good look at it to ensure that it maintains national and strategic interests. I say to the people who complain about aeroplanes flying over their heads: keep in mind that some of these aeroplanes are flying people whose life depends on it, and that country Australians do need to have access to city airports and that those slots do need to be available.

I will also point out that in contrast to Sydney one of the things that has become a commercial advantage about Melbourne is that we don't have restricted landing hours. The planes can come in and out at different times. This has facilitated, in a significant way, the opportunity for agricultural and horticultural products to make their way out of Melbourne. The open skies policy, which the Australian government has, has been very beneficial.

Out of my patch every night there would be a semitrailer load of asparagus that's trucked down to Melbourne Airport that's put in the belly of an A380 or a 777 and is largely sent to the UAE, and from there it makes its way into the markets. When I met with the CEO of Emirates airlines a while ago, one of the reasons they were flying, at that stage, out of Adelaide—even though they didn't have enough passenger movements, because they couldn't get enough passengers to fill the plane—was that they could get the plane to its maximum take-off weight on the back of agricultural products in the belly of those planes.

In contrast, the 24-hour access that's available in Melbourne has created more opportunity for exports of our nation and the restrictions on Sydney Airport have actually limited that. I find it quite interesting that we have people who put their hand on their heart and believe in having an open market where we have our ports open, such as our seaports, but they want to put restrictions on our airports, which also take our export goods as a nation. This is one of the reasons why Western Sydney plays a very critical role: it will allow us to have an additional spot for us to take our products to the markets.

One of the things that's also a concern to me, as a person who lives in a regional area, is even getting into Sydney—getting those slots for regional aircraft into Sydney Airport—has become more and more difficult, and has been sometimes some of the restrictions for opening up routes for servicing country Australians' access into our capital cities. That's another reason why it is good to see the government building a second airport in Sydney. It isn't just an issue for the people who live in Sydney; it's also an issue for the national competitiveness, and for the people who live in regional areas.

I will talk about the importance of general aviation and having general aviation access into airports such as Parafield, which I've flown into; into airports such as the Gold Coast, which I've flown into and will be flying into in a couple of weeks; and into airports such as Jandakot and Archerfield. The general aviation sector services not just business travellers but regional Australians that need to fly into those cities. One of the great challenges we've got if we are going to have safe, open and good air services for many years to come is that we need to be encouraging the general aviation sector, so that we have more pilots. Everyone who flies a big plane starts off in a little plane. I know it might sound like rocket science, but you usually start off in little Tecnam or maybe a 152 Cessna. Then you progress from there. Then you move your way up. The dream is to finish up flying the A380 Airbus, the A350 Airbus, the 777 or the Bart 787—'If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going', for those who believe in good American aircraft.

It does concern me that the general aviation sector is being forced out of too many of our airports and that restrictions around ASIC cards have made life difficult for a lot of general aviation pilots, who have legitimate reasons, to be landing at the airports. We need to ensure that ownership of general aviation aircraft is affordable and that medicals are fair and reasonable. I think if we're not careful we'll get to a stage where we will be limiting our capacity to open up the opportunities for aviation, because we can't find enough pilots.

I commend this bill to the House. This is wise. We do need to have very strong and considered oversight when it comes to airports. They provide links for regional Australia for our agricultural products, our safety and our general aviation. This bill is going a long way towards that. I hope and trust that our government will continue to stand by general aviation so we can have a vibrant, prosperous regional Australia for many years to come.

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