Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't know whether it's arrogance or incompetence or a bit of both, but it is really highlighted by the issue about recent changes to flight paths at Hobart airport. The flight path moved over the sleepy suburbs of Kellevie, Bream Creek, Copping, Marion Bay, Boomer Bay and Dunalley on 14 September in my electorate, and nobody was told. Not even my office was told that these changes were on the way until two weeks later, and the residents certainly were not told that these flight paths would be going over their country community. What's happened since? A website's come up, driven by the local residents. David Patman from Dunalley is leading this fight. The organisation is called Just Plane Wrong. They've got a petition running. When they rang the minister's office, they were certainly told that he wasn't interested in getting a petition from them, but they're ignoring that, of course. They've put a petition out—at JustPlaneWrong.org—to highlight this issue. They also want to make sure people know that they can make their thoughts known to Air Services Australia and the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman.

The process behind this has just been absolutely disgraceful. We all know that the airport is getting busier. We welcome that and we welcome the trade. We know that flight paths sometimes have to change, but where is the consultation? Why haven't they asked people what they wanted? Why haven't they sought to inform people before these changes came through? It is arrogant and incompetent and should not be accepted.