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

I, like most of us in this place, take the job of being a member of parliament very seriously, and you'd like to think that most MPs who are here do the same thing. The people in the electorate of Adelaide deserve to be heard and to be listened to, and I find that that is my No. 1 responsibility as a member of parliament—to hear what they have to say and to try and fulfil their needs. This has been my focus ever since becoming a member of parliament, and I will continue to fight for my electorate, listen to my electorate and try and deliver for my electorate.

One of the first things I campaigned about before I became a member of parliament, when I was a candidate way back in 1998, was the Adelaide Airport curfew. There was no curfew back then, and the residents had formed a residents association in and around the airport and were demanding a curfew—in other words, not to allow planes in between 11 pm and 6 am. I fought very hard for that and I give credit as well to my predecessor, Chris Gallus, who brought a private member's bill to displace and had it passed. But, if it weren't for the action of the community, nothing would have happened.

So we were finally successful in establishing a ban on those passenger-carrying jet flights between 11 pm and 6 am, and that was in the year 2000. Many airports in major cities have curfews; it's not unusual. For example, La Guardia, in New York, has a curfew. Even Hong Kong has a curfew of a sort, where flights are allowed to come in only through one direction, and it begins much earlier than ours; I think it's after 9 pm. In Holland, the major there has a curfew as well.

Adelaide Airport is so close to the city. It's six kilometres from the CBD, and we're very lucky to have an airport so close. It keeps transport and freight costs down because it is so close to the CBD. But it also means it's smack-bang in the middle of thousands of residential homes, so you need a good balance between the interests of the airport, the interests of the economy in good airport infrastructure and the interests of the residents who live in and around the airport. I continue to receive e-mails from constituents, and I have received emails, letters and phone calls from constituents in and around the airport from day one when I was elected. They are on all sorts of things, like flights coming in after curfew hours or cargo planes coming in.

I'm actually pleased that the member for Riverina is here as well, because when he was transport minister I wrote many letters to him, and I have to say he always responded and tried to do what was best for the residents and airport. For example, recently I wrote to the minister the transport on behalf one of my constituents in North Adelaide. Now, North Adelaide is the northern part of the CBD and it's right under the flight path, so it is affected by aircraft noise continuously. My constituent was frustrated by the number of flights that appeared to be landing at Adelaide Airport using flight path 23, which requires them to fly over North Adelaide, Walkerville and other residential areas—Mile End, Cowandilla, Richmond, a fair bit of Torrensville and Brooklyn Park, which is actually in the electorate of Hindmarsh now. He was saying to me that he felt it was an unacceptable number of flights using flight path 23 both during and outside the designated curfew.

According to the Adelaide Airport Curfew Act, these flights are not to go through flight path 23—my constituent says they're illegal—unless they're given dispensation before leaving their departure airport. During the curfew, flights must land using runway 5. The curfew doesn't mean that there are no flights coming in; it's the less noisy aeroplanes and the non-commercial-passenger flights that are coming in. The reports I've been getting from constituents is that they're often woken by flight using landing path 23 when they should be using landing path 5, which is over the sea. Clearly, there are times when the wind conditions might require this, and we can understand this; however, this seems to happen even when conditions are favourable. You can see the concern by the residents.

If Hong Kong can do it during curfew hours—if Hong Kong International Airport can have them flying in over the ocean into the airport, I can't see why a city like Adelaide can't do it.

The disruption and noise pollution caused by the number of flights is a serious problem for residents. If you're a shift worker or you have small children—I recall all sorts of issues from many years ago when doorknocking in Richmond. I remember seeing a mum who had four kids, and she was saying the kids got woken up in the morning as soon as the first flights take off. She was very close to the airport; maybe from here to the Senate was the distance. You can imagine the jets revving up in the morning. To warm them up, they actually start them a good hour before they fly in the morning, apparently. I actually went down there at 5.30 or 6 am, at this constituent's invitation, and, yes, by 5.30 it was noise galore. Everything else was quiet so the noise travelled, and her kids, true to her word, woke up, one by one, when they weren't meant to make up until seven or 7:30.

I've raised this, again and again, with past ministers and the current minister, and I'll continue to fight for the strengthening and preservation of the Adelaide Airport curfew. From time to time, we have different groups that come out and call for the curfew to be abolished, and that would be outrageous if it happened. We're very lucky in Adelaide to have the curfew six kilometres from the CBD, which is a great help to businesses and transport agencies, to a whole range of businesses that use the airport, and to constituents that live near the airport. It only takes me 10 minutes to get to the airport. I could walk down there within 25 minutes. So I'm very lucky, in that sense. But, at the same time, the airport is smack bang in the middle of 25,000 residential homes, and we've got to have a good balance. I think we've got the balance quite well at the moment. It's just getting them to stick to some of the rules.

Sticking with transport and infrastructure, when I became a candidate in Adelaide in 2018-19 one of the first things that people raised with me was the dangerous level crossing at Ovingham, at the Churchill and Torrens roads intersection. If anyone knows that area, there are massive freight trains that go by regularly. The bars would go down and you could get caught there for up to 30 minutes. This intersection is one of the busiest. It leads from the western suburbs to the northern suburbs. About 22,000 cars per hour use that road, so you can imagine the disruption they've had for years with the trains.

As the member I campaigned very hard for an upgrade, writing to different ministers. The former minister for infrastructure and transport is here. The infrastructure work started under the previous government, but it was called for by many people in the area, the state members of parliament and myself. Last Sunday, I was very pleased to go to the opening of the Ovingham overpass and see it come to fruition. It is now a beautiful bridge that flows over the train lines and veers to the right for people wanting to go to the northern suburbs and down to the Port of Adelaide and the western suburbs. I'm so pleased that it's now delivered and is up and working.

It was an absolute pleasure on the weekend to join local residents, the South Australian Premier, Peter Malinauskas, and the state member for Adelaide, Lucy Hood, to officially open the upgrade. The intersection is used by many commuters. In fact, more than 21,000 vehicles—I'll correct what I said earlier—cross the new bridge each day. You can imagine taking 30 minutes out per day—if you get caught out there two or three times a week that could be anything up to an hour that you're delayed, that you miss out on your home life. It could be the difference between getting home on time and putting the kids to bed, and reading them a story, or just a good family time—even if it's 10 minutes per day, 10 in the morning and 10 at night; all of a sudden there's a good hour there that you can spend with your family. These are the infrastructure projects that make a real difference to people's lives.

I also asked some of the people involved in the build, who were down there on the weekend, how many people were employed. They said over 1,000 people were employed, directly and indirectly, through this job. There was $253 million, I think— (Time expired)