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

Airports are key components of our national economy. Collectively, they employ more than 120,000 people and are critical infrastructure in the movement of people and goods. It's good to see we have the former transport minister at the table—one of many in this government! Airports are getting busier. More people fly than ever before. New technology and intense competition mean it is much cheaper to fly today than it was more than 30 years ago. Indeed, I personally recall an economy return fare to the UK in 1985, when average weekly wages were around $400, costing my family $2,000. It took a long time to save up to get me to the UK after high school. Sadly, for my family, I came back! Today, with average weekly wages having nearly quadrupled, you can fly to the UK for $1,500. That is $500 less than it was 30 years ago. It is just over a week's wages. Apparently, fares to the UK and the US got down to under $1,000 last year. It is eminently affordable for many Australians, but I must point out that it is still unaffordable for far too many Australians in insecure work and with low wages.

It's little wonder, with fares heading the way they have, that passenger numbers have ballooned both internationally and domestically. This massive increase in passenger numbers has required bigger and better airports, including across our regions. The Airports Amendment Bill 2016 seeks to streamline processes for development at and around 21 federally leased airports. Airports that used to be under Commonwealth control no longer are. The land is owned by the Commonwealth, but they flog the business enterprises off to some very lucky corporations that happen to make a very good amount of money out of those operations. Labor supports this bill, but we will be seeking amendments and we will support an inquiry into the bill when it reaches the other place.

In Tasmania, Hobart and Launceston airports are amongst the 21 that are covered by this legislation. Currently, Hobart and Launceston airports are required to update their master plans every five years. This bill will change that requirement to every eight years, relieving some compliance pressure on airport management. But if we're going to have less frequent updates to airport plans, we need to ensure that the plans airports put in place are better than they are now. In recent years, both Hobart and Launceston airports have had significant upgrades as a result of increased business. These upgrades have driven higher employment and higher profits for the airport companies, and that's good news. But higher profits for airport companies should not come at the expense of the communities that host the airports. Launceston Airport, which sits just inside the northern edge of my electorate, has for the past four years or so failed to pay its fair share to the local community of the Northern Midlands Council. I know the former minister is aware of this because I wrote to him ad nauseam when he was in the ministerial portfolio.

In lieu of rates, airports on federally leased land pay a fee to local councils based on evaluation. As it's federal land, the local council has no legal jurisdiction to levy rates nor to enforce the collection of the fee in lieu. Local councils essentially depend on the airport playing fair and, ultimately, upon the federal transport minister to step in if airports don't pay their way. Following a significant capital upgrade some years ago, Launceston Airport refused to abide by the newest estimates of Tasmania's Valuer-General, which carried with it a significantly higher fee in lieu that recognised the higher valuation as a result of the development.

The airport's refusal has led to years of legal stand-offs between the airport corporation, allied with its landlord, the federal department of transport, against the plucky Northern Midlands Council, which is acting on behalf of its ratepayers. The Northern Midlands Council isn't some big fancy council like Sydney or Brisbane; it's a tiny council with a relatively small rates base, lots of sheep farmers, and it needs this money. It hasn't been able to collect more than $1 million in fees because Launceston Airport simply refuses to hand over the money. Every dollar that the airport corporation refuses to pay is a dollar the council does not have to invest in local amenity for Northern Midlands residents and ratepayers. This was a formal process of assessment done by the same people who assess all residential and commercial property in Tasmania. So why should Launceston Airport expect special treatment?

The government's response through this saga has been disappointing and not helped by the fact there has been a merry-go-round of transport ministers. The current incumbent is the Deputy Prime Minister, and he's getting the same letters that I sent to the minister currently at the table, the member for Gippsland. I do call on the current minister, who is a member of the Nationals, a party that makes much of representing regional communities, to put the interests of a regional council ahead of the interests of a wealthy corporation and direct Launceston Airport to cough up the more than $1 million it now owes the people of the Northern Midlands.

We'll get off Launceston for now. Hobart Airport abuts the southern edge of my electorate. That gives you some indication of the size of my electorate. In the north I've got Launceston and in the south, Hobart sits just outside it. Hobart Airport could also do with some assistance when it comes to dealing with the local community. Hobart has also undergone significant and long-overdue upgrades, and these have been welcomed by all. But it's the new flight paths that have accompanied the upgrades and the extra flights that have my constituents up in arms. More particularly, it was the way that the new flight paths were introduced with no consultation that has people livid.

The new routes fly over formally quiet towns on the Tasman and Forestier peninsulas, areas that have been developing vineyards and boutique accommodation experiences. The last thing they expected was to see jumbo jets flying overhead, but now they fly overhead along very narrow designated flight paths, increasing the impact significantly for people in towns like Dunalley. The noise has been so loud, so negatively impactful, that the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman initiated an investigation, resulting in a report which included 13 recommendations, all of which made operational suggestions to address poor consultative processes, poor complaint handling and the absence of impact consideration. My office continues to advocate strongly for a better consultation process and, as a result, the Hobart Airport and Airservices Australia have organised a number of more appropriate consultative events, providing the opportunity for the community to interact with the service and raise their concerns.

I must stress I do not accept consultation as a tick-and-flick exercise. If Airservices thinks it can mosey into town, have a meeting with the locals then mosey on out and simply continue to do what it wanted to do in the first place, it is badly mistaken. I expect community views to be properly taken into account and acted upon. Where community expectations cannot be met for legal, financial or operational reasons, I expect those reasons to be fully explained and local concerns not simply brushed off.

I am pleased to note that within this bill before the House today is a demand for new Australian noise exposure forecasts in every new airport master plan. I hope there will be limits placed upon permitted noise and noise mitigation policies explored to ensure better community satisfaction. Airports, like other major developments and public infrastructure, have significant implications for the wider community, as I've outlined with Hobart and Launceston. Although they generate income and play a crucial role in transporting goods and people, their operations and construction must be considerate of local amenity.

Wherever possible, airports should work with, not against, the interests of their host communities. I would like to see, as part of this new master plan process, not just community consultation but also a genuine move towards community partnership, including an ongoing role for local community leaders in airport management, where there are wider impacts to be considered. The master plan process is currently a bit short-sighted and narrowly focused. It requires a strategic approach to the airport every five years—soon to be eight years—but it doesn't require nearly enough attention to be focused on the airport's impacts on the wider community.

Airports should be required to assess what their operations are likely to mean for local roads, for example, or for local public transport infrastructure, for nearby creeks and inlets, for shops and for other commercial activities. It is certainly a fact that the road infrastructure in and around both Hobart and Launceston is wanting, to say the least. I don't think there'd be many tourists and visitors coming out of those airports who'd look at the road shoulders coming out of those two airports and think, 'Gee, this is topnotch'—it certainly is not. But those upgrades and management of those things should be a shared responsibility. It's a bit much to expect local councils to carry the cost of these upgrades, and it's certainly a bit much to expect it when the airport corporations are refusing to pay their fair share to those councils.

In order to access Hobart's airport, you must first navigate a dangerous and busy roundabout on the Tasman Highway, which is a major thoroughfare for people exiting Hobart and heading towards some of the state's growing suburban areas in the south-east of my electorate and along the beautiful east coast and beautiful Tasman Peninsula, also in my electorate. Because of the demands placed upon this section of the road and the ongoing dissatisfaction of road users—and, I must say, after some pressure from Labor members, on this side of the House—the roundabout is to be replaced with a four-lane overpass intersection. Typical of this government, however, the overpass project is already months behind schedule without even the first sod being turned. And if rumours that I hear are correct, the budget is also being recast without any work already having been done—not a very good indication of the way that project is going under the joint management of the federal Liberal government and the state Liberal government. Importantly, when that interchange finally happens, it will improve access to the airport and it will be better able to handle the growth in visitor numbers, air freight transport and any commercial developments in the area. Anticipating the demands that will be placed on the surrounds of airports is critical in ensuring that they are equipped to manage and mitigate future growth and increased demands.

Far, far from my electorate is Sydney. Sydney airport is the world's 20th-busiest airport. In 2017 it saw 43.3 million passengers go through it—in one year. Just the year before, Sydney was the world's 23rd-busiest airport, so it's jumped three spaces globally in one year. That is a phenomenal increase. The growth is not incidental and it is demonstrative of Australia's increased visitor numbers, thanks to our country's global reputation as a tourist destination, with high domestic and overseas tourist numbers. While it is positive to see such growth, there are challenges, including environmental wear and tear and the fact that public infrastructure and transport systems struggle to cope with higher demands. It's little wonder that with that growth and, given the size of Sydney, we are now looking at a second Sydney airport. It makes sense, but so does the implementation of a range of new requirements for airport infrastructure, including better environmental assessments, better management and oversight processes and certainly better community consultation and community partnership. I know from speaking to my colleagues on this side of the House who represent some of the communities out in Western Sydney that they are very critical of the fact that their communities have been effectively sidelined with the planning for Badgerys Creek and the way it's essentially being imposed upon them. I'm not sure whether it will be a 24-hour flight plan, but there will certainly be very late flights and very early flights—things that residents in Sydney are not subjected to. So we support this, but we will be seeking amendments.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Airports Amendment Bill 2016 amends the Airports Act to streamline the process for development at and around federally leased airports. While Labor mostly welcomes this bill, we are proposing two amendments: firstly, that the monetary trigger threshold for major development plans be reduced to $25 million and, secondly, that the automatic approval of requests for shorter public consultation periods in relation to major development plans around airports be removed.

Labor supports investment in aviation, and we're committed to growing this crucial sector in our economy. Airports are economic powerhouses. I know this because I represent the electorate that has Australia's largest and busiest airport. I'm very proud to represent the electorate of Kingsford Smith, which bears the name of Australia's most famous aviator, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, the legendary Smithy, who lost his life at the all-too-young age of 38 in 1935. My electorate also hosts Australia's largest and busiest airport, which bears Kingsford Smith's name. Last year, Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport was used by 43.3 million passengers. That's an increase of over five million passengers each year from 2013. As the previous speaker mentioned, Kingsford Smith airport is now the 20th busiest airport in the world. Today, more than 40 per cent of overseas travellers visiting Australia pass through Kingsford Smith airport.

The airport, like many others across Australia, is seeing an increasing number of visitors, in particular, from Asia. In particular, it's Asia's rising middle class who are now making the most of new opportunities to travel, and for many that choice of travel is to our great southern land. It's a big-picture trend that's likely to continue, with 88 per cent of the world's next billion entrants into the middle class coming from Asia. That's 380 million people from India's middle class, 350 million from China's middle class and 210 million in the rest of Asia. We know that when people move out of poverty and into higher income brackets, into the middle class, they gain an appetite for services, particularly healthcare services, education services and, importantly, tourism and travel services. For many in Asia, Australia is now a very popular destination because it's in their backyard, it's within the same time zone and it's easily accessible by air. So it's clear that our airports are vital to Australia's economy in helping to boost tourism and trade as well.

Later this month, Sydney Airport will release its latest 20-year draft blueprint for the future of Kingsford Smith airport. The airport says it's forecasting passenger numbers to reach 65 million in 2039. Yet Sydney Airport says the No. 1 community concern facing Kingsford Smith now and over the next two decades is the crippling road congestion and poor public transport links to the airport. There are very few other international airports that I know of where, if you leave the international airport, you are straight onto a domestic and suburban street, but that is exactly the case at Sydney's international airport and domestic airport, particularly when you leave the domestic terminal. You're straight onto Robey Street in Mascot. People live in Robey Street. It's their life. Their houses are there. Their garages are there. They park there. Yet we're dumping all of this traffic onto local streets from the busiest airport in the country, without any real public transport links and without any consideration for those that live around the airport.

The suburban streets around the airport are now clogged with traffic on a daily basis. If you go to Sydney airport any time after 5 am, you are almost guaranteed to get into a traffic jam. Once again, we've seen that the New South Wales Liberal government has failed the public when it comes to key infrastructure and planning and when it comes to spending around taking some of the pressure off our community—the community that I represent—in respect of the airport. I'm getting a number of letters and emails from constituents who are telling me that people who are going overseas or going on a flight will simply park in their street and leave their car there for weeks or, in some cases, months and walk with their bags to the airport, and they can do this because the airport is only down the road. For some areas, it's less than a 500-metre walk to the terminal from some of the suburban streets that people are now parking in.

As I mentioned earlier, Kingsford Smith is, of course, Australia's busiest airport. Yet, when you talk about busy airports throughout the world, the one thing that they all tend to have is very good public transport links. That's certainly not the case with Kingsford Smith Airport in Mascot because, believe it or not, there is only one bus route that services Sydney airport. The 400 service bus that comes from Bondi Junction and Burwood remains the only bus service that gets in and out of Kingsford Smith Airport. For years now, the operators of the airport, Sydney Airport Corporation Limited, have been crying out to the New South Wales Liberal government saying, 'We need additional bus services if we're going to get more people in and out of the airport on public transport rather than using cars.'

Four years ago, the New South Wales Liberal government unveiled their so-called long-term plans to improve bus access at Kingsford Smith Airport. And what have they done about it since then? Zero, zilch, not a thing. It's clear that Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been asleep at the wheel yet again on infrastructure policy and planning when it comes to the future growth of Kingsford Smith Airport, and often it's the airport workers that are left in the lurch as a result. There are 30,900 people who work at Kingsford Smith Airport. As I said earlier, airports are economic powerhouses, and they provide a lot of jobs for people in the surrounding community. Forty-four per cent of those who work at the airport live in the St George-Sutherland area, represented quite ably by the shadow minister that's sitting with me here at the table, the member for Barton. Yet, there are no direct public transport links from that area to the airport. Where most of the people that work at the airport live, there is no direct public transport link for them to be able to get on public transport to actually get to work. That is an absolute disgrace. For a large metropolitan capital like Sydney, with the busiest airport in the country, to not have a public transport link to where most of the people work to access the airport is beyond a joke.

When it comes to rail services, it doesn't get any better, unfortunately. Around 24 per cent of passengers and people working at Kingsford Smith catch trains to and from the airport, and that's up from 13 per cent a decade ago. Yet most airports around Europe and Asia have between 40 and 60 per cent of passengers travelling to and from them by train. Why does Sydney airport have such low numbers of both passengers and workers accessing the airport by train compared to global benchmarks? One good reason is that workers and passengers are slugged a one-way fee of $18.10 to travel to the airport during peak hours. To travel what is really a five-minute trip on the train from areas like Hurstville or the City of Sydney to the airport will cost you $18.10 during peak hour, and that's a single trip fare. And $13.80 of the fare is the station access fee that's paid to the New South Wales government. Is it any wonder that the non-existent bus services and the rip-off that is associated with the train fare into Sydney airport has forced all of that congestion onto local roads? The community and the people who I represent are bearing that congestion and are fed up with it. They want the New South Wales Liberal government and, indeed, the Turnbull government to do something about it.

The New South Wales Liberal government say that they are improving the road network via the wonderful WestConnex. Isn't that going to be just sensational for the community that I represent? Here, you've got WestConnex—believe it or not, it is the largest road project in Sydney—going straight past the second busiest container port in the country, at Port Botany, and straight past Sydney international airport with no connection at all to those two vitally important pieces of infrastructure. For anyone who is travelling from the west and wants to access Sydney airport, guess what? They will get off at the St Peters-Tempe interchange, which is about four or five kilometres away from the actual airport. How do you think they are going to get to the airport, if they're travelling there? I tell you what they're going to do: they're going to come down the suburban streets that I mentioned earlier—particularly Gardeners Road and Botany Road, which are already clogged with traffic as it is—and they are going to dump an additional hundreds of thousands of cars per month on those suburban streets.

The other point to make is, because there is no access to the second biggest container port in the country, many of those vehicles that will be travelling down those roads will be the big B-doubles that carry freight in and out of the port. Not only are you going to have passengers from Sydney airport competing to go down these roads but you are also going to get these big freight trucks that take freight to and from the port coming down Botany Road, Gardeners Road and Robey Street—the streets that I mentioned earlier—putting additional congestion on our roads. It is any wonder that, with the non-existent bus services and the rip-off to get a train, workers are forced onto these congested roads? Every day around 160,000 people are going to and from the airport and yet the New South Wales Liberal government have no plan on how to solve the current congestion crisis, let alone a plan for future growth and the numbers that are coming over the coming decades.

Aircraft noise is always an issue around airports. I probably have more complaints than most MPs, given the busy nature of Sydney airport. I have written to the respective transport ministers. I know that there is a long-term operating plan for Sydney airport and that the majority of flights are meant to go out over the sea rather than over homes; but regularly, when we check on the Airservices Australia website, they are not meeting the targets that are set down under the long-term operating plan. We get complaints from constituents, understandably, for the increasing noise that we're seeing around the airport. With the advent of modern aircraft, flights have become more efficient, more powerful and quieter. We should be able to send more of those flights out over the water rather than over people's households.

We've seen a massive increase in the traffic from helicopters over Sydney airport as well. There were 5,776 helicopter trips in 2010 to and from Sydney airport. That has now risen to 15,730 in 2017, which is about a 173 per cent increase in helicopter trips over the last seven years. Most of them are coming from the airport straight out over Mascot, Pagewood and Maroubra. Once they get out to the sea, they do a left-hand turn, go straight up the coast, do a joy ride around the harbour and then come back and do the same trip. By the time that they are getting back to Sydney airport, they're flying very low when they're coming in over households. We've had a lot of complaints from constituents about this.

Our airports are pieces of critical national infrastructure. They deserve better. Our airports don't operate in isolation. They are part of our community. They can have significant impacts on people and places. That's why the development of our airports needs to be well planned and done in consultation with communities. That is the key: ensuring that there is consultation with communities. Labor supports investment in aviation infrastructure. As I said earlier, airports are economic powerhouses, but it needs to be done in consultation with communities. That's why we're proposing that the trigger for development plans be dropped from $35 million to $25 million and that this proposal to ensure that the time line can be reduced for consultation with communities be rejected. Consultation with communities is the key to ensuring that we have viable, workable airports that provide jobs for people and also important travel and tourism services.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's safe to say that the issue of airports is a hot one for my electorate in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, so I look at the Airports Amendment Bill 2016 in the context that it probably does little to reassure communities I represent, particularly in the Blue Mountains and those who value their night-time silence in the Hawkesbury. But I also look at it from the perspective of other airports I know quite well, including Hobart, Alice Springs and Darwin, which are keen to see appropriate commercial development around their sites. I will speak of Western Sydney Airport later.

In terms of meeting the needs of other airports, I want to talk about the additional measures Labor has indicated that we are moving with this bill. One is the monetary trigger. It's pretty reasonable to see $25 million, rather than the $35 million that the government proposed, as a trigger for a separate major development plan. It reflects CPI but also maintains the commitment that we have to have to people who live alongside an existing airport. They need to be assured that their scrutiny won't be reduced.

The other amendment—which the government has seen the merit of and, I understand, will support—is around proper consultation. At the moment, with draft major development plans, the public consultation period is 60 business days. The minister, though, can approve a shorter period of not less than 15 business days if asked in writing by the operator to do so, as long as they are satisfied that the proposed development is consistent with the approved airport master plan and that it doesn't have significant impact on the local or regional community. The government has proposed that, if the minister doesn't make a decision on the request within 15 business days, the minister be deemed to have approved that shorter period. We can't support that. It has the potential to take away the rights of local communities to have their say. I think a minister should be able to consider a request for reduced consultation within 15 business days—that's three weeks. But where that doesn't happen, rather than the request being deemed approved, it should be deemed not approved. A lack of decision should go not in favour of the airport operators but in favour of the community's right to scrutiny. Certainly Labor has increased the rights for communities when we've been in office. It was Labor that required federal airports to establish community aviation consultation groups. Before then, they just didn't exist. Whilst some airports do it better than others, it's right that they're all required to have a robust consultation process.

That brings me to the fact that, in spite of having a set of rules for existing airports, none of this will really help the residents of the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury who are concerned right now about Badgerys Creek Airport. One of the key issues is flight noise. The legislation talks about noise, and the ANEF is the official Australian measure of flight noise. More importantly, the ANEF standards suggest that, outside the ANEF 20, housing construction doesn't need to be modified due to aircraft noise. But I want to put on the record concerns about the ANEF. A former Aircraft Noise Ombudsman, Ron Brent, appointed by the Australian government in 2010 to help improve the handling of complaints around aircraft noise, to improve the information about aircraft noise and to improve the consultation about changes in air traffic that alter the impact of aircraft noise, is considered something of an expert. I've turned to his work, as I struggle to convey to people who live outside the Blue Mountains the genuine fear about the impacts of 24-hour aircraft noise, which will ultimately be the result of building an airport at the foot of the Blue Mountains.

As Mr Brent points out, the first thing to note about aircraft noise is that the experience of it—or any noise for that matter—is highly subjective. Unbearable noise for one person might not be of concern to another. He points to research in the US that has shown that, even in areas below the ANEF 20 noise rating, up to 45 per cent of residents are likely to be moderately or severely affected by aircraft noise. The other really important thing about noise from planes is that it's different to the noise created by railways or roads. It will reach a much wider area. It can't be shielded by barriers along the route, and it's not restricted to a narrow and predictable path. It doesn't fall in a straight line but spreads over an area that gets wider as the aircraft gets higher. It also gets quieter as the aircraft climbs. This means that the noise can reach more people once the aircraft is further from the airport, yet it can be many kilometres from take-off before the noise stops being intrusive for most people.

We are living that experience in the Blue Mountains right now with A380s and the newer aircraft. There's been a marked increase in the annoyance factor from planes travelling from east to west across the mountains. At the same time, people say, 'Oh, the new planes are so much quieter!' Well, they might be quieter on the ground, but the heavier planes take longer to get to their cruising height and so are now flying over the mountains at not 20,000-plus feet but as low as 13,000 feet, and they are much noisier. Many people tell me that they don't bother with an alarm clock, because the first flights out of Sydney airport in the morning head across at about 6.20 am and serve as a wake-up call. The same can be said of the last flights, crossing the mountains usually before 10.30 pm—and of course they are at those times because Sydney airport has a curfew.

Back to ANEF: the ANEF comes from a complex formula, including how loud the noise is, how frequent it is, and the distribution of the noise across the day and the night, because aircraft at night make more noise than in the day, when there are fewer competing noises. Mr Brent explains that the final average level won't tell you whether you'll get occasional loud noises, frequent quieter noise, lots of high noise or most of the noise between six and seven in the morning, when you hope to sleep in. What's more, the ANEF level will not tell you how bad things will be on the worst days. So, it's important to ensure that when evaluation is done on the Western Sydney airport's proposed flight paths it's not based on ANEF alone. N70 contours, which outline areas within which there'll be a given number of times a day that will get noise loud enough to disrupt a reasonable conversation—something that will drown out conversation around the barbecue, which is around 70 decibels—must be included, as well as maximum and minimum daily forecasts.

But of course we're not going to see these things for the Blue Mountains or the Hawkesbury for years. There is an airport under construction, yet there are no flight paths. The community is not going to be given this information about a 24-hour airport. Heathrow Airport has certainly realised that as flight volumes grow and more communities are more profoundly affected they need to do more. Their Fly Quiet and Green program focuses not just on noise but also on emissions, which would seem to be a sensible thing to be targeting. My point is that there is much more to be done by this government in the context of its plans for a huge new airport in Western Sydney. This bill is based on the idea that there must be a social compact between airports and the communities that live around them. Unless this government is transparent about the true impacts the airport will have on the Blue Mountains, there will never be a social compact.

Let's start with community engagement—the forum on Western Sydney airport drop-ins. This was multiple boards of information put around the room on a Friday night so that people could come and see it—lots of pretty pictures but, I have to say, I could find only one mention of the fact that the airport is a 24/7 airport with no curfew. It might suit the government for hundreds of thousands of people to not know that the planes will fly all through the night, but it is not an honest way of moving forward. In fact, I know that not everyone in this chamber has really got the message that this is a 24-hour airport in one of the most densely populated parts of our country. It is a blatant lack of transparency.

I'm going to quote from D Southgate from Airport Operations in the Commonwealth Department of Transport and Regional Services, writing in the year 2000—18 years ago—about aircraft noise, which should serve as a warning to this government. He said: 'There is little doubt that if the public believes it has been misled on noise predictions then there's going to be a negative reaction which far exceeds that which would otherwise be expected from a particular level of noise exposure.' I think that warning holds true, if we don't see honesty and transparency.

Nor has there been any attempt to really address publicly why there is no curfew—why it's okay for the people in the west of Sydney to have planes flying above them as low as a few thousand feet, even across the Blue Mountains, when it would be completely unacceptable in the east of the city. For goodness sake! The Prime Minister got upset with his local council for considering a skate park operating in daylight hours because the noise would disturb local residents. Yet he has not a qualm about subjecting the ever-growing Western Sydney population to sleep-disturbing noises through the night.

Given the 24-hour nature of this airport, nor can I accept that the project is barrelling on ahead without the release of flight paths. We're told that the ones in the IES were not the real ones. Really? Can anyone tell me that 100 per cent of incoming flights to this airport won't go across the Blue Mountains at any hour of the day? No-one is able to give that guarantee. Even with the promised night-time no-fly zone, where is the data to show how many nights of the year it will be able to be implemented? The reality is that, given a single runway, there are only two ways that a plane can fly in and take off—and, given prevailing winds, probably only one way most of the time. I was concerned to hear the previous speaker talk about how many times the long-term operating plan at Sydney Airport is not kept in the way it's meant to be. Is that the sort of thing we can expect to see in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury? These are all questions that people deserve the answers to, so be honest, get real and tell people so they can make their own judgement about whether the price they pay is an acceptable one.

People also expect transparency around the jobs figures that are being touted. A research report for the Jobs for Western Sydney working group written by Dr Ian Watson, who specialises in labour market research, has found that, contrary to the claims of a jobs bonanza, only 120 construction jobs and 800 airport jobs would be targeted to Western Sydney workers in the first stages of the project. That is a lot lower than the expectations people in the community have about how readily they're going to be able to get work, and it's been confirmed to me that anyone who takes a job on the airport project and relocates to the region for the duration of that work will be considered a local. So you don't have to have been born in that area or gone to school in that area or live in that area now with your family. You just have to be able to move into the area, and they can tick a box and say, 'Oh, there's another local.' So there isn't even any guarantee that the local jobs will go to an existing local employment pool. Dr Watson's report, to be released in the next week, finds the overall job claims, such as 8,700 aviation jobs by 2031, are vastly exaggerated, and his analysis is that the proposals for the adjacent business park and for the aerotropolis appear unrealistic. I congratulate the group on the serious work they've done to work through the numbers and what they're trying to do to get behind the spin, to get to the bottom and to paint a realistic picture, because that's what people deserve.

Nothing in what I have learnt of this airport plan since it was first talked about, nothing I have seen in the data and nothing I have seen in researching projects around the world has given me very much peace of mind. Nothing I've seen or been told changes my view that there are profound negative impacts from the flight paths across the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury. As a community, I believe, we will have to fight hard to protect the peace and silence that we have until now been able to take for granted as something that we have when we choose to live in a World Heritage area. But you can't only stand here and fight for the things you know you are going to win, so I'm here to fight for what I believe is right for the community that I'm privileged to represent. The community is concerned not just for itself but also to ensure that future generations have the same privilege of being able to live and play peacefully in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in respect of the Airports Amendment Bill 2016, and I note that this bill has been before the parliament since December 2016, almost two years. Perhaps it will get through today. I make that point because it was only earlier this year that a master plan for the airport within my electorate, Parafield Airport, was finally approved. I suspect, had this legislation been in place in 2016, there might have been some differences with respect to the treatment of that master plan.

There are 21 federally leased airports around Australia, of which 19 require a master plan to be prepared every five years. This legislation makes several changes to the Airports Act, and I will go through them very briefly. Firstly, it increases the processing time for master plans from five years to eight years, so there will be an eight-year cycle instead of a five-year cycle. Secondly, updated noise exposure forecasts will be required with each new master plan application. Thirdly, there will be a lifting of the monetary figure from $20 million to $35 million and the introduction of a three-yearly construction indexation for the requirement of a separate major development plan. Fourthly, it will establish a decision time frame of 15 days for the minister to consider reduced periods for major development plan approvals. Fifthly, it will enable the minister to extend more than once the period during which developments are required to be substantially completed. And, lastly, it will allow airport operators to notify the minister if exceptional circumstances mean that a major development cannot proceed.

I speak in support of the comments already made by the member for Grayndler in respect of this legislation. And I understand that there'll be some amendments moved, perhaps in the committee stage of the bill, particularly with respect to the $35 million matter and the 15-day approval proposal that I referred to earlier.

This legislation is very relevant to the people that I represent, because, within the Makin electorate, lies Parafield Airport. It is a general aviation airport established in 1927. Until 1960 it was located in what was considered to be outside the metropolitan area of Adelaide and surrounded largely by open farmland. Today that is no longer the case. Urban Adelaide now surrounds Parafield Airport, with homes and industry right around it. In 1998, the airport was leased to Adelaide Airport Limited for 99 years. It was effectively privatised, with the only control reserved by the federal government being the approval process of the five-yearly master plans, a process that appears to be little more than a box-ticking exercise, which I expect comes at great expense and time to airport management.

Airports are exempt from all state and local government laws, as are all Commonwealth properties, and therefore there is little input that state and local government authorities and residents can make with respect to the plans. Yes, the plans are put on display, and, yes, there is a consultation period that the operators have to go through, but ultimately the airport can still determine what it wants to do on its land without having to be accountable to the local community. The master plan process is therefore really a mechanism—and it's the only mechanism—available to the federal government to limit any airport development, because, as I made clear a moment ago, airport developments are not limited by local authorities. In fact, when we see what is happening at airports today, they are not only used for aviation activities, to which the exemptions originally were meant to apply, but are now also used for wide-scale, non-aviation commercial developments.

In January this year, the former Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the member for New England, approved the 2017 Parafield Airport Master Plan. In his letter of approval, the minister stated, 'In making my decision, I considered the views of the South Australian government as well as all relevant federal agencies and other interested parties.' Many residents were aggrieved by that decision. Indeed, many residents contacted my office with respect to it. They felt their views had been ignored, that their concerns were not heard, and that, in reality, they had no say. I sympathise with those residents.

Parafield Airport management went through the public consultation process required of them. It culminated with a public forum held in Salisbury, attended by senior airport representatives and around 100 local residents. At the forum, airport representatives provided detailed representations of the master plan and how it was to be developed. Regrettably, insufficient time was provided to allow all of those people present to raise their personal concerns, ask questions or make verbal submissions. Several people that spoke to me when the forum had ended expressed their disappointment about not having been given an opportunity to speak in the public forum—albeit that, in fairness to them, the airport management staff offered to stay back and speak to people privately about the matters of concern to them.

The dominant issue of concern that was raised was the incessant noise generated by circuit training around the airport, particularly by trainee pilots, most of whom are being trained by an international training college based at Parafield Airport. It is in the middle of suburbia, and flight-training activities which were once not a problem are today, for many, incompatible with residential living. It is particularly a problem for those homes that are directly under the flight-training air paths. Flight training is, however, important for the aviation industry and I accept that. It's not only an important economic driver for South Australia, with most of the student pilots coming from overseas, but it's important that we have sufficiently well-trained pilots to work within the air industry. I accept that it remains a fact that the airport has been at Parafield since 1927, prior to residents moving in, and that flight training has always been a core business of the airport. I understand that, at present, there are about 215,000 aircraft movements at the airport per year, and that most of them are attributed to the flight-training activities. There have also been commendable efforts by airport management, through its technical advisory committee, to reduce noise impacts on surrounding residential areas. However, I believe that more can be done.

In particular, the airport's Fly Friendly Program could be improved. Daily commencement and end times of flight training, particularly on weekends and public holidays, could be made much more family-friendly. Several other suggestions that would reduce noise impact have also been made over the years, but it always seems that there is an unconvincing reason as to why those suggestions cannot be adopted. More recently, I note that the state member for Playford, the Hon. Michael Brown, has proposed that the aircraft used for circuit training should be replaced with electric aircraft. I understand that electric aircraft are currently being trialled at Jandakot in WA with services to Rottnest Island. My understanding is that they can stay in the air for about an hour, perhaps with a reserve of another 30 minutes after that, so that may well be the way to go. I don't know if they will make a difference to noise, because I'm not an aircraft engineer. But if they do improve the situation, then that is, perhaps, another matter that could be considered into the future.

At the core of the residents' concern is that they felt that their voices were simply not being heard, and that the changes they were proposing with respect to the master plan were not in any way adopted within the plan. And, to my knowledge, I'm not aware of any notable changes having been made to the master plan as a result of the consultation process—which highlights the point I made earlier: is it really a consultation process? Or is it really an information process, for the surrounding public to be made aware of what the airport management propose into the future?

The other matter that I will speak about is the issue of the noise exposure forecasts. I note that, under this bill, the noise exposure forecasts must be lodged with every master plan update. What effect that will have on the approval process is, in my mind, unclear. Again, will they simply provide more information or do they change the nature of the master plan that is to be approved? Bear in mind that, if no change is made to the master plan, the existing plan continues in operation: the fact that a master plan is not approved does not restrict the airport owners from continuing with development on airports; it simply restricts them from making developments inconsistent with the currently approved master plan.

Another matter has more recently emerged in respect of this issue, which is also very relevant to the question of master plans. I understand that the government is currently consulting with respect to what are referred to as public safety zones. In short these safety zones are intended to ensure that areas at the end of each runway at airports around the country might have restrictions placed on them with respect to the types of buildings that might go onto that land. I also understand that, where a development has already occurred, that will not be affected. If developments are already in place, those developments will be able to continue regardless of what changes are made in respect of public safety zones.

Clearly this proposal will create a limit on the types of developments that can be constructed at the end of the runways. I'm referring to land at the end of the runways outside of the airport itself—in other words, privately-owned land that lines up with the airport runways. That will clearly have an impact on the value of that land. People in the northern suburbs of Adelaide have already expressed concerns with respect to the impact the public safety zone proposal will have on their land. In particular, a lot of the land in the northern areas of Adelaide lies between Parafield Airport and Edinburgh air base, so it's actually trapped between two airports. That in turn means considerable tracts of land may be subject to whatever recommendations arise out of this proposal.

I understand its purpose. In the past my understanding was that any developments were restricted only on the basis of the noise exposure forecast grids created around the airports. This adds a new dimension to the restrictions, which was not foreseen at the time local governments put in their own citywide development plans, when many people made investments and planned for their future in the knowledge that the noise exposure forecast grid determined what could be built on their privately-owned land around the airports. I accept that the broader community is currently being consulted on this matter and no final position has been reached, but it is clear to me that if public safety zones are to be included in future developments around airports then the public safety zones would have a direct impact on the master plan process and the master plans currently applying to each and every one of those 19 airports. How will the public safety zones be incorporated into the master plan process in the future, and what impact will public safety zones have on them?

I will listen with interest to the debate in respect of the amendments. I believe that the amendments proposed to be moved by the member for Grayndler are very sensible, as other members on this side of the House have made clear, and I once again endorse the comments made by the member for Grayndler when on behalf of the opposition he responded to this legislation.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank those members, including the member for Makin, who have contributed to this debate on the Airports Amendment Bill 2016. The federal government regulates planning and development on federally-leased airport sites through the Airports Act 1996. On 1 December 2016 the former minister, the member for Gippsland, introduced the bill into the House of Representatives. The bill proposes several measures developed in consultation with key industry stakeholders to streamline certain administrative arrangements in the Airports Act 1996 relating to master plans and major development plans that are currently generating inefficient outcomes for industry as well as imposing unnecessary and onerous administrative and compliance costs. In particular, the bill proposes to implement a differential master plan submission cycle, thereby requiring the major airports, such as Brisbane, Melbourne, Tullamarine, Perth, Sydney's Kingsford Smith—and I note the comments from the member for Kingsford Smith in this debate—and Western Sydney airport to maintain the current five-year submission cycle while the remaining airports will prepare a master plan every eight years.

The bill also proposes to increase the current $20 million monetary trigger for a major development plan to $25 million. The monetary threshold will be reviewed and revised via legislative instrument every three years, having regard to changes in construction activity costs and associated indexations to ensure that the monetary trigger accurately reflects and keeps pace with economic and marketplace conditions. The bill reinforces the government's commitment to improving the capacity of our regulatory framework to ensure that it continues to deliver a proportionate and efficiency-based approach that reduces administrative and compliance costs for operators, creating regulatory certainty for industry and maintaining appropriate and effective regulatory oversight.

On 9 February 2017 the bill was referred to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 28 March that year. Following an aviation accident at Essendon Airport, the Senate granted an extension of time for reporting, to 19 March 2018. In March 2018 the committee recommended that the Senate pass the Airports Amendment Bill 2017. The committee's report has made it very clear that there is no linkage between the accident at Essendon Airport and the matters under consideration in this bill. I thank the shadow minister for infrastructure and transport for working constructively in a bipartisan way to ensure passage of this legislation, and I acknowledge his amendments to the bill, which he's just about to put to the House. The government contends that the bill will bring about positive changes for the aviation industry and airport users whilst still maintaining appropriate regulatory oversight and that this bill should be supported. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.