Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to join my colleagues in speaking to the Airports Amendment Bill 2018. There are obviously a lot of important issues to consider in the context of laws relating to our airports and the impact they have on communities. Senator Rice was discussing that, and that is something I will touch on later. It is something I know Senator McKim is aware of in our home state of Tasmania. In fact, there's probably an affected residence on the Tasmanian peninsula. But that's something I will touch on a little later on.

Obviously airports right across our country are critical pieces of infrastructure for our economy, for the movement of people around our country to conduct their business, for leisure and also for freight of goods. That is something I know only too well in the state of Tasmania, where you have two options to get on and off the island: to go by boat or to go by plane. I think about 90 per cent of those coming in and out of our state come and go by air. So I know only too well how important it is that the legislative arrangements that relate to the future developments of our airports and the safeguards that are in place with regard to community consultation et cetera are as strong as possible. I believe this bill goes a long way towards doing that.

Noting that airports are important pieces of community infrastructure that we are all reliant on, this bill puts in place a number of elements that enable us to ensure that the works planned, proposed and done have appropriate scrutiny and appropriate consultation as well. As has been pointed to by the former Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Mr Chester—and I had a quick look at his second reading speech in the other place—when works are proposed at federally leased airports across the country, under the act dating from 1996 airports are required to prepare a master plan every five years and to establish a strategic direction for efficient and economic development at the airport as well as prepare major development plans for significant major on-air developments. Back home in Tasmania, a lot of things are on the radar for the Hobart International Airport that probably put it in the category we're talking about. I'll talk more about that little bit later on.

The act sets out what the required content of each plan is to be and has prescriptions around the public consultation process that any lessee company must undertake prior to submitting the plan to the minister for final consideration. As was stated by the former minister, on average the current legislative process requires an airport lessee company to expend significant resources, and it can take a company two years on average to develop a plan. That's a huge undertaking, with a massive amount of resourcing going into ensuring that the plans comply with the requested standards as set out in legislation. It can take two years to develop and consult. As one would imagine through a two-year process, for a private organise entering into this process there would be a degree of inefficiency and imposition of administration and compliance costs which one would think to be quite unreasonable. So that's what this bill goes to, in some regards—dealing with some of those concerns.

I will just turn quickly to the elements of the bill and what it proposes to do with regard to the master plan submission cycle for federally leased airports. I'm sure others have touched on this, but I will go over some of these details as well. When you look to the major airports, which include those in the cities of Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Sydney west, they will maintain the current five-year submission cycle. Then the remaining airports of Adelaide, Alice Springs, Archerfield, Bankstown, Camden, Canberra, Darwin, Essendon, the Gold Coast, Hobart, Jandakot, Launceston, Moorabbin, Parafield and Townsville will prepare a master plan every eight years, which I think is probably in keeping with the amount of development and growth that occurs at these particular airports.

The bill, as I'm sure has already been canvassed by previous speakers in this debate, also mandates the inclusion of a new Australian noise exposure forecast in each new master plan. I will talk in a little more detail about this later on, but obviously, with the increasing frequency of air traffic over residential areas—in the case of Tasmania, it is over less densely populated areas but still an increase in traffic—it is something that we should be taking into account as plans are developed. Of course, growth is forecast, and we have to make sure that the amenity, the lifestyle, of those who live under these flight paths will be taken into consideration appropriately.

The bill also proposes to increase the current monetary trigger, which is set at $20 million, to $25 million, and of course to include an indexation mechanism to allow for increased building costs in the future, as benchmarks set in place today obviously will not be appropriate a decade hence. As I'm sure has been noted in this debate by previous speakers, there has been a good degree of negotiation between the government and the opposition on the monetary threshold trigger and also around provisions for approved requests from airports for shortened public consultation periods for major development plans. Now, if the minister doesn't make a decision within 15 days of the receipt of the request, the request is taken to have been refused.

So, as I noted previously, there are some provisions that will go a long way to reducing the administrative burden on, and the associated cost to, proponents of developments—the lessee companies. In the context of clients, users of airports, passengers and freight companies, this can only be a good thing. They will have an improved service at an improved facility. And one would hope that, when costs are not being borne by those who run, maintain and own these airports, the cost isn't being passed on to airport users, be they the airlines, their passengers or the freight clients.

I turn now to some local issues. I have mentioned the Hobart airport, which is one of the federally leased airports. Senator Rice has touched on a number of issues with regard to noise. In Tasmania, we've recently had a significant amount of consternation over the issue of flight paths in and out of Hobart airport. The residents of the Tasman Peninsula, and communities just south-east of Hobart, in southern beaches that Senator Bilyk would be well familiar with, at Sorell and Midway Point, have all experienced significant changes around the flight paths. Airservices Australia, who are in charge of managing and regulating our air traffic and ensuring that it operates safely and in order, went through a process which, to the local community, was less than satisfactory. In short, the flight path of air traffic coming in—over communities like Sorell and Midway Point, closer to the major population of Hobart—was moved, to go out to the east and then to circle in over the Tasman Peninsula.

There was a very limited degree of public consultation around those changes, and of course that resulted in a great degree of consternation on the part of community members. Senator Bilyk and of course Senator McKim, who was present in the chamber earlier, would be well aware of that. There was the lack of consultation and then, all of a sudden, a great many flights overhead, in communities that were previously almost deadly silent when it came to air traffic noise. That has had a significant impact on members of those communities.

So Airservices, who have acknowledged that the consultation process was more than deficient and could have been done better, have conducted further consultations. I was pleased to be able to attend one of the community consultation sessions in Sorell, which was well attended. Airservices convened quite a number of these throughout the communities affected. It is important to note that, wherever a flight path is going to be located, someone is going to be impacted.

The feedback at the community forum reflected that there were some people who were very satisfied with the change of flight paths—those living in the communities of Midway Point or Sorell. As some of the people who got up and spoke at the forum said, they'd been living with planes flying overhead from approximately 6.00 am through to 11.00 pm every day for a great many years. They were pleased with the change because they now don't have planes flying overhead. They can sit out in their backyard and have a barbeque without having to yell at guests when a plane was flying overhead. A different story was relayed by those who live in the communities of Dunalley, Carlton, Dodges Ferry and some other Tasman Peninsula communities. They felt very aggrieved that all air traffic has now been redirected over their once peaceful communities.

As I said, Airservices has been conducting extensive consultations, and they recently released the work that has come out of those consultation sessions. Airservices will continue to work with the communities affected and provide, I hope, some relief, because it is important to ensure that, when changes are proposed, people's lives are taken into account. In fact, there was one example of an individual wanting to start a new business just north of the community of Dunalley. It's been publicly reported that, until this issue is resolved, this individual will not be setting up his new business because of the impact of the noise on the amenity in the area he is situated in and where he intended to set up his business. So, this bill, as discussed earlier, is going to require every new master plan to include an Australian noise exposure forecast, and it will specify that the forecast must be renewed each time. That is good news, I think, for those who have been impacted previously.

Hobart Airport, which is the one that is of most interest to the state of Tasmania, is going through extreme growth. Anyone who is aware of Tasmanian matters will be aware of the fact that Hobart Airport only recently opened its extended runway, in March this year. There was a huge investment in that airport. I think around $40 million was invested in the airport, predominantly from the Australian government. That investment was for a number of reasons. We have a growing visitor economy in Tasmania—I'll return to the numbers shortly. We also have increasing demand for our fresh produce, so, of course, there's been a great degree of interest in setting up, establishing and maintaining a direct freight link with parts of South-East Asia so that they can have instant access to our fresh produce.

The other element to this, of course, is the fact that we have the status of being Australia's gateway to Antarctica, particularly East Antarctica. We recently saw the work being undertaken to create a paved, year-round runway in the East Antarctic region, which will enable us to have year-round access and not have to rely purely on sea access, which is incredibly important for our science community. There is a growing interest in Antarctic science and what it means for the world. These are major developments. They are costly. The changes that are being proposed, worked through and planned for at the airport will definitely be impacted by the need to create a major development plan as these works are proposed.

As stated, though, the extension to the runway does provide the opportunity for Hobart Airport to become home to some direct international flights. There's been talk of direct flights to New Zealand and to certain cities in South-East Asia. Some have also said we will be in receipt of direct flights to and from South America. They're all very exciting opportunities. But the increase in the number of passengers does put demand on infrastructure.

It was pleasing to see that Hobart Airport had originally planned for a certain amount of growth in terms of numbers. In their 2015 master plan, they had predicted that 2.6 million passengers would be passing through there each year by 2020. The problem was that, given the growth, the investments and the interest in Tasmania as a visitor destination, we've outstripped that prediction. You only have to look at the comments of the CEO of the Hobart International Airport corporation, Ms Sarah Renner. She said earlier this year that Tasmania would more likely see three million passengers a year come through the airport by the year 2022. That's a significant boost when you consider that we were in a state of decline when it came to visitor numbers. It means that Hobart Airport will have to factor in, amongst all the other major developments it is undertaking, some significant terminal works as well. The respected economist, Saul Eslake, has called on the airport to invest in aerobridges, for a start. There is the need to consider push-back mechanisms, like we have at our major airports, rather than the current arrangement at Hobart Airport where planes effectively turn on the spot. It will mean that we will have more efficient use of space. But, of course, these are all things that point to the need for proper management plans and making sure that we are appropriately planning for the future.

The board of the airport is considering its options in terms of major developments when it comes to a fresh produce export facility and exactly where on the site that will be. Again, it being federally-owned land leased to the Hobart International Airport lessee company, this facility will be, along with other works, I suspect, subject to a major development plan. Some experts in Hobart, like Mr Phil Pike and Mr Ian Locke, who is a Tasmanian fruit and vegetable export facilitator, predict that the fresh produce export side will grow by $15 million by the year 2021. This might sound like small change to some from bigger places, but in Hobart and in the state of Tasmania that's a significant amount of money, and that's a significant market we will be accessing through direct freight produce. Again, quoting Sarah Renner from Hobart International Airport, who is a proud supporter of the runway extension, having that direct freight link from Hobart to South-East Asian destinations means that you can have a punnet of berries being handpicked in the Coal Valley one day and then being shipped across and eaten in an Asian destination the next. The terminal itself will require internally significant upgrades to cope with the growing numbers, and aerobridges would require a second level. This would come at a significant cost to the proponents and to the owners of the airport as well.

All of these things are exciting to note. All of these things are very, very important to our community and to our economy. This legislation sets out how lessee companies are to proceed and how they are to take into account community concerns when it comes to things like aircraft noise, which, as I have said before, has been a significant concern in Tasmania and has been perhaps handled less than optimally in the case of the Hobart flight path. It is good to see some rules being set out and some efficiencies being found in how airport corporations are to move forward and exactly how they propose to undertake these developments, as well as some certainty and hopefully some efficiencies, which can only be a good thing for consumers. I am pleased to have spoken to this bill and I of course commend it.