Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Airports Amendment Bill 2006. There a number of issues I want to explore, but I will concentrate my remarks on the experience of communities in the north-eastern suburbs of Perth and their interaction with Perth airport because the sorry saga of the building of a brickworks on Perth airport land goes a long way towards illustrating what is wrong with the current regime governing airports leased from the Commonwealth.

The significance of building a brickworks under a flight path in a residential area cannot for one moment be underestimated. With that at the forefront of my mind, it is a very short calculation indeed to reach the conclusion that the Howard government has been grossly incompetent in the management of airport leases. I have serious doubts as to whether these amendments will go very far towards righting what is wrong with the management of airports. Why is that the case? Because the chorus of disenchantment is coming from the government’s own party room. Nothing goes further in illustrating the current problems with the Howard government than this. The now well-reported examples of sniping and backbiting among colleagues are starting to take hold like tinea on the floor of a gymnasium shower.

We need only look at two speeches made in the other place by Western Australian Liberal members of parliament on this bill—interestingly, members for electorates around the Perth Airport. It is not often we have members of the same party criticising one another in parliament, but that is what we had. I am talking about the member for Hasluck, Mr Stuart Henry, and the member for Canning, Mr Don Randall. I think it is worth drawing the attention of the Senate to what happened between these two.

During debate on this bill in the other place, the member for Hasluck, Mr Henry, almost in despair at his own hopelessness and lack of influence bewailed what had happened with the planning process at Perth Airport in relation to the construction of a brickworks on the airport site. Remember that it is land leased from the Commonwealth government. He said that when he first heard of the brickworks proposal he sought an urgent meeting with BGC, who are the proponents, and Westralia Airports Corporation in the hope that he could have, he said, ‘encouraged both parties to effectively engage the community and discuss and confirm their plans’.

But the member for Hasluck went on to say, ‘This did not happen.’ I repeat: ‘This did not happen.’ It goes to show that his claimed ‘strong voice for Hasluck’ does not even rate as a whisper in Canberra. This is despite more than 5,000 local residents, who are also voters, putting their names to a petition objecting to the construction of a brickworks in their backyard. These are the residents of the suburbs of Hazelmere, Forrestfield, High Wycombe, South Guildford and Maida Vale.

In a further admission of his own inadequacy, the member for Hasluck explained what he did next. He wrote a letter. It reminds me of a scene from the fantastic and great Australian movieThe Castle in which the Kerrigans are all sitting around the table—except for Wayne; he is in jail—and there is the proud announcement: ‘Dale dug a hole.’ Well, it was actually Mr Henry who dug the hole. By the time he had got his letter out, the hole was getting deeper and deeper. He said he raised specific concerns in his letter that a brickworks fell outside the stated aims of the Perth Airport Master Plan 2004. Surprise, surprise—once again the member for Hasluck’s specific concerns fell on deaf ears. How do we know this? Because there seems to be no stopping the brickworks, no matter how incompatible it might be with the proper functioning of an airport, no matter how many local residents are up in arms and no matter how many letters were written or protests made by the ineffectual member for Hasluck.

Being ineffectual, whom does the member for Hasluck blame? The state government of course, even though the state government did all it could, I understand, to try to have the brickworks located on a more appropriate site, given the heavy, noxious industry that it is. Alternative sites named by the government of Western Australia as more suitable included areas in Forrestdale and Neerabup. The local residents know who to blame for this appalling decision. They know the airport is on Commonwealth government land, and they know who ultimately allowed the brickworks to be built on this land; it was the Howard government, aided and abetted by the former minister for transport, Mr Truss, and the former minister for the environment, Senator Ian Campbell—no less than a Western Australian colleague of Mr Henry.

Speaking of the former environment minister, because of his so-called compassion for the environment I found it strange that the brickworks went ahead with no fight from him. I honestly feel he was compromised. I do not think he felt all that comfortable with the idea of a brickworks, but for some reason he let it go ahead. He let it go ahead in the sense that he was so prepared to save the orange-bellied parrot and yet he did not show the same concern for the residents of suburbs around Perth Airport.

But back to the member for Hasluck. What was his last resort, having failed the Hasluck community and been shown to be so ineffectual? He dug another hole. The member for Hasluck set up a community consultative committee. I have absolutely nothing against the good members of the local community who have agreed to be part of this committee—good luck to them; they will need it—but it is all too late. It is all too late for the local community because the brickworks are going ahead thanks to the Howard government. It would have meant a great deal more if the consultation had occurred when it was needed, before this government agreed to allow brickworks to be built on the Perth Airport site.

Late last year during estimates hearings into this matter I asked questions of an official from the Department of Transport and Regional Services. I asked him whether BGC would put this community group together. Mr Doherty from DOTARS replied:

That is correct. With the Westralia Airports Corporation as the airport lessee.

So we know who is really behind, who is really supporting, this so-called community consultative committee; it is the proponents of the brickworks. Mr Henry dug a hole all right—BGC and Westralia Airports Corporation, hand in glove, listening to the concerns of the community! They will listen all right, but do you know what they will hear? They will hear nothing. It will be just like the member for Hasluck’s voice in Canberra. I say good luck to the members of that committee.

This whole Perth Airport episode had a very different outcome when compared to what happened at Sydney Airport. In Sydney, Minister Vaile decided to take the axe to the proposed shopping centre at the airport, which was far too sensitive, no doubt, this close to an election. I would cheerfully swap two shopping centres for a brickworks, as would the people of Hasluck, I am sure. But there were no qualms about a brickworks at Perth Airport. You can just hear the considerations: ‘High Wycombe? Hazelmere? Never heard of them. Mr Henry, the local member? Never heard of him either’—most likely—‘Do not worry about him; he will do just as he is told.’ So much for the member for Hasluck’s attempts to represent his constituency.

Let us turn to the other Liberal member of parliament from Western Australia I referred to earlier—the Member for Canning, Don Randall—and his contribution to the debate on this bill. He entirely contradicts the member for Hasluck on the suitability of Perth Airport for a brickworks. The member for Canning said:

... in my opinion this is an entirely suitable use of Perth Airport.

‘Entirely suitable,’ said the member for Canning. That is contrary to what was said by the member for Hasluck, who told the other place:

... I was disappointed at the decision to place the brickworks on this land.

The member for Canning was once the member for Swan, until the electors there saw the error of their ways, and the electorate of Swan borders Perth Airport, unlike the seat of Canning. So one cannot help wondering what Mr Randall might have had to say if the brickworks had been proposed back in the bad old days when he held the seat of Swan. Would he have been so comfortable with the use of airport land for a brickworks? Would he have been so dismissive of the views of local residents and voters? Would he have supported the brickworks then? Who knows. But perhaps we should make the current member for Canning the judge on all these issues across the country, because obviously he is quite confident in expressing an opinion on what works best for voters in electorates other than the one he is in parliament to represent.

Why stop there? Now that the Howard government wants to roll out nuclear reactors across Australia, who better than the current member for Canning to decide where they should go? He takes such a detached, objective view and obviously gives no favours to his Liberal Party colleagues, if his treatment of the member for Hasluck is anything to go by. So when the time comes to site a reactor in Perth, no doubt the member for Canning will call for, or rather demand, it be placed on the Perth Airport site in the electorate of his colleague the member for Hasluck. This is not as silly as it sounds. The member for Hasluck did not like the idea of a brickworks, he knew it would be electoral poison for him, but he could do nothing about it and he was not assisted by his so-called colleagues in Western Australia—neither the former minister for the environment nor the member for Canning, who thinks the brickworks site is ‘entirely suitable’. Let us hope that the electors in both Hasluck and Canning keep that in mind later this year when they decide who should represent them in the federal parliament.

It is noteworthy that the member for Canning also described me as a disgrace for my criticism of the brickworks proposal. That was rather cutting. I say to the member for Canning: is it a disgrace to stick up for the rights and community interests of residents in the surrounding suburbs of Forrestfield, Maida Vaile, Hazelmere, High Wycombe and South Guildford? These residents have every right and justification to be concerned about the Howard government’s decision to allow this plan to go ahead. These residents have every right to be concerned about the apparent inability of their Liberal members of parliament to represent them and their interests. Am I a disgrace for being concerned about the health impact on local schoolchildren at Dawson Park Primary, Edney Primary, Woodlupine Primary, Forrestfield Primary, Forrestfield Senior High School, High Wycombe Primary, Maida Vale Primary and the private schools in those suburbs with total enrolments of no fewer than 3,495 students this year? Am I a disgrace for raising concerns about the effect that heavy truck traffic will have on road safety and traffic congestion for local residents when the brickworks is built? If I am a disgrace for sticking up for the local community then maybe we need more disgraceful conduct in our parliament. It says more about the member for Canning than it does about me that he feels sticking up for local people amounts to a disgrace.

I shall leave the expose on the ineffectuality of those Western Australian Liberals there. I only highlighted their behaviour in relation to the brickworks on Perth Airport land to illustrate how some of the provisions in this bill will fall short of alleviating the concerns of local residents when it comes to management of Australia’s airports. I shall now move to some of the broader concerns about this bill.

This bill seeks to reduce the time allowed for public comment on draft master plans for federally leased airports from 90 calendar days to 60 business days, effectively shortening the time for public comment. According to the explanatory memorandum attached to the bill, this is to bring the time period more into line with state and territory planning systems. That might be so, but I view anything that would shorten the amount of time available for community consultation with concern, especially given the experience of local communities with the brickworks proposal for Perth Airport. This is particularly worrying when the bill also moves to codify the right of the airport lessee to conduct types of business that are non-aeronautical in nature. Put together, shortening the time for community consultation along with codifying non-aeronautical business could, I fear, be disastrous. How will the views of local residents about the types of business and industry that will be allowed on airport land be accommodated into the future? Put simply: how will the community be protected from more brickworks or even a nuclear power plant? Where does the government’s priority really lie? How can restricting public opinion improve things for local communities who have to live with major airport development plans not for 60 or 90 days but for decades? I repeat: it will be for decades.

In airport planning and approvals the Howard government has its own version of Guantanamo Bay where, on an airport site, whatever laws the Commonwealth decides to create will apply. Commonwealth airport sites have become, in effect, jurisdictional islands where the will of the rest of the community can be excluded. It is about time this government faced up to its responsibility to seriously represent and promote the community interest and not simply be constantly falling over itself to smooth the way for its mates regardless of the long-term consequences.

There are elements in this bill that I welcome. In particular, I welcome the provisions that will require lessees to set out how they have responded to submissions from the community on planning as well as the requirement that information from the lessees on planning issues be more readily and freely available to the community. I would like to conclude my comments on this bill by thanking the shadow minister for transport and roads, the member for Batman, and his staff for the work they have done in examining this bill and assisting Labor to arrive at a sensible and balanced position.