Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

As the busiest airport in the country, Sydney airport is undoubtedly one of Australia's most critical infrastructure assets, yet it faces significant operational challenges due to its residential setting, its limited ability to expand and the variety of aircraft it is required to service. Domestically, the reputation of the airport has been enmeshed in an at times anti-competitive landscape, with practices such as slot hoarding by the major airlines leading to increased flight cancellations, delays and passenger backlash.

More recently, Bonza's financial collapse and Rex Airlines entering administration arrangements highlighted how difficult it is to competitively service New South Wales without access to peak time slots and major routes at the Sydney airport. As someone who grew up in the bush and now represents one of the most significantly impacted communities in the Sydney basin when it comes to aircraft noise and pollution, this piece of legislation is one that really matters to my electorate of North Sydney.

From the outset, I want to confirm that my community does, at this stage, broadly support much-needed reforms to the Sydney Airport demand management framework, but it must be said that this support comes with a caveat. The community expects to be respected and fully engaged in any reform process. Ultimately, the proposed reforms to the slot management scheme generally align with the various recommendations of the Harris review undertaken in 2021 and, before that, the Productivity Commission's 2019 inquiry into the economic regulation of airports.

Let's face it: many of us have all been on the wrong end of a cancelled flight and left with a sinking feeling that we may not even get to our destination that day. We all want a more efficient and reliable airport experience. Reducing or removing the ability of major airlines to strategically cancel flights at the last minute will be hugely beneficial to both passengers and potential competitors alike.

In addition to reduced cancellations, a more transparent and flexible slot management arrangement will allow new entrants and regional airlines to compete for peak slots, improving the efficiency of operations and hopefully resulting in lower prices. Meanwhile, the requirement for airlines to report on slot usage, tighter rules around transferring unused slots, and other measures that increase operational efficiency and transparency are all desirable and again welcomed by my community. Backing this up with civil penalties for anticompetitive slot management practices is long overdue.

However, without discounting the significant and positive reforms contained in this bill, I want to spend some time highlighting what I see as an unnecessary amendment to the longstanding 80 aircraft movements per hour cap on air traffic. In reflecting on the original intent of the Sydney Airport demand management framework, I think this legislation potentially overlooks a key issue. In 1996, following the introduction of a second north-south parallel runway at Sydney Airport, there was widespread public outcry at the exponential increase in aircraft noise and pollution impacting communities living under and surrounding the north-south flight paths. In recognition that these communities deserved protections and that a balance was needed to be found, one that weighed the interest of the aviation industry and the desires of the travelling public with the rights of communities living under the flight paths, John Howard and his Liberal Party took a proposed cap of 80 aircraft movements per hour and the fundamental principle that aircraft noise would be shared to the general election, and they won.

That movement cap has been the cornerstone of Sydney Airport's social licence since 1997. To change it, as this legislation proposes, requires careful scrutiny. Currently, all non-curfew hours—that is, between the hours of 6 am and 11 pm every day—are what they call regulated hours, which means not all hours are subject to the cap of 80 movements per hour. Under the new section 9A, the minister will have the power to make a recovery period declaration following 'a significant disruption to airport operations', and that might be a weather event or a major technical failure or security breach. The recovery period introduces a new concept of a recovery hour during which the cap may be temporarily increased from 80 to 85 movements per hour. The idea is that some flights cancelled as a direct result of a significant disruption can be caught up on the same day.

In her speech, the minister said:

This strictly controlled 'recovery period' will be implemented … to temporarily allow up to 85 movements per hour for a maximum of two hours on the same day …

According to the minister, this change will not increase the impact of noise on communities. This change was something that Peter Harris recommended in his 2021 review of the Sydney Airport demand management framework. He based his recommendation on the premise that, if consulted, impacted communities might tolerate a small increase to operations for very short periods of time while the airport recovers from a well-defined major incident. In effect, he suggested that communities could be convinced to help affected passengers.

Importantly, his review highlighted that, for the increase to be warranted, the following two hours after a serious disruption should already be fully allocated to the maximum of 80 aircraft movements per hour, and that is where this legislation now potentially introduces a rub, in that it does not require that any additional capacity in alternative hours is already completely utilised before an increase in the number of flights is granted. Hence, he conceived that the impact of increasing the flight numbers might result in an additional 10 flights only over two hours and in very rare circumstances. However, this important qualification has not made it into this piece of legislation. Instead, the minister may make multiple recovery period declarations on any given day with no requirement that the subsequent hours be fully allocated or that the flights being caught up are the ones that were cancelled. So the increase to the cap is not limited to two hours, would not be limited to 10 make-up flights a day and may not, therefore, be for a very short period. To put this in context, over the course of 2024, based on data available from the Airservices Australia website, the number of aircraft movements during the peak hour of 9 am to10 am on a weekday was around 66. So there is already capacity in the system to accommodate recovery flights under the existing cap. If a cap of 85 were allowed, the number of increased flights in one recovery hour alone could be closer to 20. I think it goes without saying that none of us would be indifferent to an additional 20 fights over our backyard in an hour.

In addition to the cap, the long-term operating plan for Sydney airport provides a comprehensive technical plan for aircraft and air traffic management that requires Airservices Australia to implement various noise-sharing modes, which are effectively different flight paths that utilise both the parallel and east-west runways across the day, to ensure aircraft noise and emissions are minimised or shared as widely as possible. The long-term operating plan is the subject of a ministerial direction, and Airservices is required to report on its implementation. In my role as the member for North Sydney and as a member of the Sydney Airport Community Forum, I've learnt more about air traffic management and the impacts of aircraft noise than I ever thought was possible. I know that under the long-term operating plan my community should receive roughly 39.5 per cent of air traffic overhead, and what is clear right now is that Airservices Australia is either unable or unwilling to implement the long-term operating plan in a way that it was originally conceived. As a result, the north-south parallel runways are overused, and those living under the north-south flight paths are being unfairly impacted.

Not surprisingly then, my office has received steady consistent correspondence from constituents at their wits' end with the relentless aircraft noise overhead. It is difficult to hear themselves speak some days. They can't work from their home, their ability to enjoy being outdoors is compromised, they cannot sleep and ultimately it's making them sick. And it's not in their heads. Instead of the 39½ per cent of air traffic agreed to, communities living under the north-south flight paths are being subjected to upward of—wait for it—90 per cent, contrary to the long-term operating plan and contrary to the ministerial direction. This growth divergence is known and acknowledged by both Sydney Airports Corporation and Airservices Australia. This divergence, then, is something I have repeatedly raised on behalf of my community at the Sydney Airport Community Forum meetings, in my submissions to the Senate inquiry into the impact and mitigation of aircraft noise, and I raise it again now.

While the report due back from the Senate inquiry investigating the health impacts of aircraft noise has once again been delayed, the negative health outcomes from prolonged exposure to aircraft noise and air pollution have already been well documented internationally. Aside from the impacts of wellbeing and other psychosocial outcomes, there are clear links to increased cardiovascular disease and adverse learning outcomes for children. The ability of Airservices to manage 85 aircraft movements per hour and maintain noise sharing protocols has not been modelled. Given they are already failing to meet agreed noise sharing targets under the existing cap, I would say that it will be, quite frankly, a miracle if this legislation works as intended and does not significantly impact my community detrimentally. In practice, this will mean any time a recovery period is declared, all flights will operate on the parallel north-south runways. If a disruption occurs in the morning, the ability of the minister to make multiple recovery period declarations means that this could last for the rest of the day.

So the effect of this legislation could be to entrench the already disproportionate and unfair allocation of aircraft noise and emissions to communities like mine that live under the north-south flight paths. This is not consistent with the right to health outcomes as purported by this bill. While the overall numbers of flights may be within the daily cap, which is presumably the basis on which the minister can state that this change will not increase noise impacts on communities, the reality is that the negative impact of increased movements will be borne by a very small subset of the community who have not been consulted and who will not be indifferent. Given this, I think it's incumbent on the minister to show why the additional capacity is required at all and why recovery flights cannot be accommodated within the existing operational capacity.

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, the definition of a 'serious disruption' has not been provided, and there's no indication that it will be put into writing in this bill. Rather, this critical definition is currently being negotiated behind closed doors between the minister's office, the department, Sydney Airport and Airservices Australia—none of whom, I would argue, have the best interests of the communities living under the flight paths at front of mind. The Harris review repeatedly made the point that support for temporarily increasing an hourly cap and the circumstances in which that might occur should be developed in conjunction with the community to foster understanding and to maintain confidence in the demand management framework. I would have thought that the Sydney Airport Community Forum representatives would have had a seat at the table in the early stages of these discussions, rather than having to wait to see the exposure draft.

As I mentioned earlier, when John Howard, then both the Prime Minister and the member for Bennelong, enshrined 80 aircraft movements per hour as a cap, it was fundamentally a promise from all Australians to the negatively impacted communities that their rights mattered, their health mattered and their interests were being acknowledged and upheld. I now represent those same communities—residents in Hunters Hill, Lane Cove, Boronia Park and the surrounds—and it's why I felt compelled to focus on this issue today, despite supporting the bulk of the proposed reforms contained in this bill. That the current Prime Minister and the current member for Bennelong aren't standing here beside me is actually really surprising. With the abolition of the seat of North Sydney at the next election, the communities I'm fighting for today will revert to Bennelong at the next federal election, and they would expect their member to be in this chamber. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's own community of Grayndler is possibly the only community that stands to be more adversely affected than my own.

It's unfortunate that a bill that has many positives also potentially reopens the door for a renegotiation of the longstanding social licence under which Sydney Airport operates and that we are once again debating important legislation that transfers significant powers to a minister without complete information. Ultimately, our communities deserve better, and I call on the government to strive to deliver just that—better for all.

See this speech in context