Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on an issue that has been an ongoing sore point in the lives of many residents living in close proximity to the Adelaide Airport and under the flight paths of its air traffic. I am, of course, speaking of the Adelaide Airport Noise Insulation Program. The program assists residents and also applies to certain public buildings. It protects inhabitants from excessive aircraft noise by use of insulation in the form of double-glazed windows and the like. Since day one back in the year 2001, when the map demarcating those residents who would receive the program and those who would not was released, this program has done something for some and nothing or very little for others.

It has always perplexed members of the public how a building on one side of the street can be entitled to receive assistance under the package, worth anything up to $60,000-odd dollars, while buildings and owners on the other side of the street are excluded from receiving anything. The assessment of which properties are worthy of coverage under this program is based on properties’ relative aircraft noise exposure as assessed under the Australian Noise Exposure Forecast system, the ANEF. This system takes into account the numbers and types of aircraft, their flight paths and noise characteristics and the time of day of their operation. The noise exposure levels are represented by a series of contours on a map joining all the points which have some specified ANEF level, for example 25, 30 and 40 ANEF. Only residences within the 30 noise exposure contour are eligible for insulation.

This system is similar to that in operation in the United States of America, and is viewed as superior to that of simply measuring decibel levels, which can result in measurements that vary wildly depending on unpredictable variables such as weather. We are informed by the government that the annual Australian Noise Exposure Index, the measurement that maps areas of the city exposed to the qualifying 30 ANEF noise exposure level, has been proceeding in relation to Adelaide Airport and others around the nation. Sydney airport noise and flight path reports indicate the extension of noise exposure contours with changes in numbers and types of aircraft using particular runways at various times of the day. The Australian Noise Exposure Index has identified movement in the coverage of the 30 ANEF noise level at Sydney Airport in recent times. I presume this will lead to a reassessment of those homes within Sydney that qualify for the noise insulation program.

In relation to Adelaide Airport, we know from the good advice of Airservices Australia that the number of aircraft movements, flights landing or taking off, has increased by almost 10 per cent from the December quarter of 2003 to the December quarter of 2006. Yet we are told by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, the minister’s representatives or others that there has been no movement in the boundaries containing properties adjacent to Adelaide Airport’s flight paths experiencing 30 ANEF noise levels.

Knowing the depth of feeling in the community, expressed over many years now, in relation to this issue, I would like to call on the government to substantiate its position of a total lack of movement in Adelaide’s geographic area subjected to 30 ANEF noise levels. I call on the government to provide to the public an independent assessment of all available Australian Noise Exposure Index information pertaining to Adelaide Airport in a form so that residents can see, demonstrably, that the areas affected by 30 ANEF noise levels have not changed since the turn of the century, as the government asserts. The public deserves to have access to this information. Likewise, I call on the government to include the annual assessments of the Australian Noise Exposure Indices and detailed assessments of their geographic scope within the material made public via the Department of Transport and Regional Services or the Airservices Australia websites, maximising access to this information, which is only otherwise available through Adelaide Airport Ltd itself.

It has been an issue in the electorate of Hindmarsh for quite a long time that some houses on one side of the street get the insulation program because of the ANEF measurements but on the other side of the street, where the noise is exactly the same, they do not receive it. This raises questions. Why is it that one side of the street receives it and the other does not? What has not been taken into account is the noise level. We have been calling on this government for a long time now to take into consideration the noise levels, to tell the residents of Hindmarsh in and around the airport in the flight path where those measurements have been taken, whether they have been taken and if they have not been taken, why not and to explain to those residents who are not getting the program why other areas further away are getting the program when they are not. (Time expired)