David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

In summing up, I thank senators for their contributions to the debate on the Airports Amendment Bill 2006, which forms the keystone of the government’s regulatory regime for the 22 leased federal airports. The privatisation of these airports has fostered a vibrant industry that has enabled airports to grow as commercial businesses with minimal government intervention. The network provided by the leased federal airports regulated under the Airports Act forms the backbone of the country’s aviation and transport infrastructure. Coming from Western Australia as I do, I can say that this is a very vital part of the day-to-day commercial operation of the whole of our state.

The bill preserves and enhances the open and transparent regulatory regime for land use planning, protection of the environment and control of on-airport building activity provided for by the Airports Act. However, the government acknowledges that a number of concerns have been raised during debate on this bill and by the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport following its inquiry into the bill. The government welcomes this scrutiny and will be responding to a number of these issues with amendments to the original bill. I will outline these amendments and speak on them briefly now with a view to minimising the amount of time taken to process the government’s amendments. I will also seek to speak to some of the opposition amendments.

I turn briefly to the key reform elements within the bill. The bill seeks to reaffirm the clear intention of the government to provide for non-aeronautical development on airports provided that such development is consistent with the airport lease and approved master plan. It proposes to exclude the Canberra Airport from the operation of the National Capital Plan, as approved by cabinet in March 2006. The proposed amendment will see Canberra Airport having to meet the same land use development and planning regimes as other leased federal airports.

The bill will provide a stop-the-clock provision, which allows the minister to seek additional information and research on airport major development proposals. This will enable the minister to better deal with any major development proposals where they consider that further information is required to assess the proposal. Currently the minister can only approve or reject a development proposal within a 90-day period or the project is deemed to be approved. This provision in the bill will encourage airports to provide more comprehensive planning documents in order to benefit from a streamlined assessment process—and I may have more to say about that in addressing some of the amendments of the opposition.

The bill also seeks to streamline the public comment and assessment periods for master plans, major development plans and environmental strategies. This will reduce the public comment period for master plans and major development plans from 90 calendar days—which is effectively 65 business days—to 60 business days. The bill requires better access to key planning and development proposals to be provided to the community by airports through requiring proposals to be readily available free of charge on a website. This will ensure that the public have ready access to associated documents in electronic form, free of charge, to assist in their providing comment on land use proposals within their communities. The bill will increase the dollar threshold for triggering major development plan requirements from $10 million to $20 million to reflect the increased cost of construction. This will not affect the requirement that all proposals which have environmental impact must be assessed under a major development plan.

The bill inaugurates a requirement that master plans provide better information for communities on flight paths and the noise exposure contours for an airport. This will require improved information regarding aircraft noise exposure levels and indicative flight paths. Also, it requires that, where a proposed major development has been approved, construction must be substantially completed within five years of the approval being given or else approval will lapse. It requires an airport lessee company to demonstrate to the minister how it had due regard to all public comment when preparing its draft master plans and major development plans. Currently the airport company need only state that it had due regard, and need not explain or describe how such regard was obtained. Further to this, the bill makes provision for allowing for non-aeronautical projects which are staged over a finite period and individually do not trigger the dollar threshold provided for in the Airports Act to be viewed as a single major airport development which must be progressed in accordance with the act. This removes the scope for airports to break up projects to avoid lodging plans for major development approval.

The bill also makes land clearing on airport sites a notifiable building activity requiring approval. This strengthens the ability to regulate land clearing on airport sites. It also includes purpose and objective statements relating to airport master plans in line with that recommendation from the June 2000 Senate committee inquiry into the Brisbane Airport master plan. Complementary changes are proposed with regard to airport environment strategies and airport major development plans. The bill also allows for an airport master plan to include forecasts and other matters that extend beyond the 20-year planning period, enabling state and territory land use planning agencies to implement long-term planning goals that are compatible with all airports’ proposed aeronautical operations in the future.

The bill also requires an airport lessee company to prepare a new draft master plan should, since the current master plan was approved, a more recent aircraft noise forecast for the airport be enclosed. Also, it provides for regulations to be made which will facilitate the timely update of airside vehicle control handbooks published by airport operator companies. It will enhance the controls over gambling activities presently provided for by regulation. And it requires all providers of air traffic control and rescue firefighting services to obtain appropriate approvals from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

With respect to the government’s amendments, I reaffirm that we recognise the number of issues and concerns raised in the debate on this bill in both chambers and through the Senate committee process. The Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport supported passage of the bill with two amendments: firstly, that airport lessee companies be required to provide notice to relevant state and local government organisations when key planning documents are released for public comment and, secondly, that the airport lessee companies be required to provide copies of all public submissions when lodging these documents for approval under the Airports Act 1996. The government fully supports these two key recommendations, and the amendments being moved will give effect to them. These changes, which require the airport operator to advise local planning authorities of proposed developments on airports and provide the Minister for Transport and Regional Services with copies of all public documents, will add greater transparency to the airport planning process.

The government does not, however, support the secondary recommendation from the committee report which included reversing the current deemed approval provision, requiring all consecutive or concurrent projects to be considered as a single development and having all social, economic and environmental impact studies and assessments made available to the public. The removal of the current deemed approval provision and certainty of decision making that this provision provides was a theme repeated in the opposition’s amendments that were moved and subsequently defeated in the House of Representatives. Such an amendment could only serve to generate uncertainty with regard to future major airport developments. The opposition would seek to add to this uncertainty by requiring the Department of Transport and Regional Services to employ town planners. The department does employ some town planners. However, the assessment of a major airport development requires a myriad of skills, including a comprehensive understanding of the aviation industry and the environment. The department obtains information and expertise from a range of portfolio and external sources on relevant issues such as security, safety, town planning et cetera, as required, in assessing those developments.

Uncertainty in planning and burdensome regulation, as promoted by the opposition in their amendments, would stifle the development of key national transport infrastructure, a situation which one can observe internationally in some other countries with privatised airports. Impediments of this nature to airport development would be exacerbated by the recent calls from state premiers to hand over planning jurisdiction for non-aeronautical development at the leased federal airports. Such a move would expose the development of these key national transport infrastructure assets to the uncertain, unpredictable and often unending planning regimes of state and local government, a move which is not supported by the government nor, I would suggest, by the public. Indeed, may I pause here in my comments on the bill to say that in Western Australia we have seen an enormous number of problems with a moribund and highly technical bureaucratic planning process. What this has yielded is a government of largesse and patronage wherein two people—and we all know who they are—have benefited greatly from offering to business a rite of passage through the planning and environmental procedures of my home state in circumstances where the Crime and Corruption Commission has carried out extensive investigations with respect to how that has occurred. This government seeks to avoid that type of network and web of bureaucratic red and green tape at all costs.

I note in this regard that the Greens have sought to move an amendment to have all major development plans of a non-aeronautical nature be subject to local and state planning laws and payment of rates. Firstly, with respect to the payment of rates, all non-aeronautical developments on airports are already required to pay rates through the ex gratia rates clause, which I believe, from memory, is clause 24 in the airport lease agreements. Secondly, and further to my comments above on the calls by the state premiers to regulate non-aeronautical developments, this amendment would create a legal and planning minefield. According to the Greens, their amendment attempts to subject non-aeronautical developers to state and territory local planning laws, but it does not achieve this result. Major development under section 89(1)(e), for example, could include an aircraft maintenance facility on the airport and would, under this amendment, be subject to state and territory and local planning laws.

This highlights how difficult it would be in practice to determine what a non-aeronautical development is. For example, is an air freight distribution centre established on the airport for sound logistical and freight requirements an aeronautical development or a non-aeronautical development? The recent decision by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services on the Sydney major development plan highlights the need for the Commonwealth to retain planning control. This complex decision involved consideration both of aviation and safety issues and of off-airport impacts on the road network. In line with this commitment to transparent airport planning, as indicated in the media release by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services on 13 February 2007, the government is also moving an amendment in response to specific concerns of the proposed reduction in the time for public consultation on airport master plans, major development plans and environmental strategies.

This amendment will alter the original reduction in consultation from 90 calendar days to 45 business days to allow for a public consultation period of 60 business days. In contrast, the opposition amendments attempt to increase the public comment period to 90 business days—in other words, some 126 calendar days, which is over four months. In line with what we have seen in the states in terms of planning, this is moribund; it puts weight on the hose; it is a ‘standing on the hose’ exercise which business cannot tolerate, particularly when airports operate to tight time frames and schedules. This is going too far in terms of balancing the committee’s needs versus a timely development of application process. The government amendment ensures that the benchmark for public consultation in the development of statutory planning documents—at the least, federal airport sites—is one of the longest when compared with other state and territory government planning regimes. To be perfectly clear, the government encourages consultation between airports and their communities, but equally important is the need to have a timely development application process which is simple and cost efficient.

In addition, the government’s airport consultation guidelines released in December 2006 set out the government’s expectations with regard to reports such as economic impact statements and road traffic studies. Further amendments to the bill sought by the opposition are also not supported by the government. In particular the opposition seeks to place an obligation upon the minister to provide to relevant state and territory planning agencies or local government authorities a statement of reasons for a decision if a minister’s decision is not in accordance with their submissions.

The government notes that there are already established processes under section 242 of the Airports Act 1996. A person whose interest is affected by the decision is able to obtain a written statement of reasons from the minister and may appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to review the decision upon its merits. In addition, judicial review is available from the Federal Court under the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977. Accordingly, the government sees no need to provide an additional requirement to provide reasons for a decision.

The opposition also seeks to remove the current deemed approval provisions under the Airports Act 1996. I have already made the government’s position on this clear. However, the proposed amendment goes further and has the effect of removing the time frame for the minister to consider a development. Therefore, there would be no obligation on a minister to make any decision within a specified time period, something more akin to the state and territory and local government planning processes, which I have already said are a bit of a dog’s breakfast.

While noting that there have been no deemed approvals under the act since its inception in 1996, the government further notes that the introduction of the stop-the-clock provisions will ensure that the minister is able to make an informed decision to approve or reject a development within the statutory period. The government’s view is that the current provisions provide an appropriate balance with the incentive for the minister to resolve the issue without unnecessary delay.

Finally, the opposition seeks to impose upon airports a requirement that they negotiate in good faith with the state and territory governments and/or local authorities on infrastructure requirements for off-airport impacts associated with the development. This would likely lead to a plethora of claims by the respective governments and authorities, many of which may not be directly related to the development or should be properly funded by governments or authorities. The government considers that this issue is best addressed on a case-by-case basis. There are a number of recent examples where there have been conditions placed on a number of approved developments. For example, traffic mitigation measures and infrastructure contributions have been required in respect of the Essendon Airport Outlet Centre, the Sydney airport international terminal precinct works and the brickworks at Perth airport. In addition there are examples of the airports and state and territory and local governments voluntarily reaching separate agreements on off-airport infrastructure costs directly associated with the development. Under the lease agreements airport lessee companies are required to make rate equivalent payments to their local governments, which is only fair. But the opposition’s amendment would provide unscrupulous governments with the opportunity to demand payment for services they should be providing. This legislation is not about helping governments to cost shift. Having addressed the opposition’s amendments and having dealt with government amendments, I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.