Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know everyone has been waiting with bated breath for the answer to the question that I asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. To remind people who were not here yesterday, I let the Senate know about a series of questions I asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services about the Perth brickworks. The minister has ended up as the de facto regulator for the brickworks. The answer I got to these questions was that the airports branch of the aviation and airports division of the Department of Transport and Regional Services will monitor compliance with all conditions of approval.

With all due respect to the people who work at DOTARS, this branch has not been set up to evaluate matters such as Aboriginal heritage values on airport land, nor was it established to safeguard the biodiversity values of this area, nor does it have the ability to analyse airshed modelling to protect residents from acid gas fallout. None of these things is in its purview and I would say that there are other agencies, particularly state ones, that are much better qualified to do this. Nor do I believe that it has the necessary planning expertise to ensure that these developments are compatible with surrounding land uses. Again, it is not what the department was set up to do.

This bill continues a trend of allowing incompatible land uses on important areas of urban and peri-urban bushland—areas that I remind you are in very short supply in most of our capital cities these days. Without the kind of regulatory oversight that state governments have spent years struggling to develop—and this oversight is absolutely necessary for these areas of bushland—this bill will make a bad situation worse.

The Greens will be moving an amendment. Senator Milne has already highlighted that she will be moving an amendment that allows better state evaluation of these important bushlands and the developments that affect them. We commend that amendment to the Senate to enable these important areas of bushland in our capital cities to be protected. As I highlighted yesterday, in some instances these are part of the last remnants of important biodiversity in our capital cities. The Perth airport bushland contains values that are found nowhere else on the Swan coastal plain. They should be protected and they should not be subjected to the ad hoc developments that are being allowed to occur at present. We would have liked to have seen this bill deal with this by tightening up these sorts of controls so that development on these areas can be either properly controlled or not allowed in cases where they are incompatible with the biodiversity of these areas or with the flight paths—which is what I thought airports were there for in the first place.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to make a few comments about the Airports Amendment Bill 2006. This bill and the Senate inquiry into the bill have given senators and members and other interested parties the opportunity to once again canvass a number of contentious issues that have arisen since some 22 of Australia’s airports were leased to private companies—a process that commenced more than 10 years ago. The initial decision to privatise airport leases was a contentious one and continues to be so. However, in hindsight—and noting the huge expansion in air travel in this country and our reliance on air travel as a nation—the only way we were going to be able to fund continuous improvements and build the infrastructure needed to deliver the required air transport services was to invite private investment. Otherwise, taxpayers would have had an unbearable burden and it is unlikely that air transport services and infrastructure would have kept pace with our nation’s growth and with the demand for modern transport systems.

However, privatisation of any government services brings with it the usual difficult problem of balancing the need for the private provider to make a profit in a way that does not override the rights and reasonable demands of citizens. Privatisation also puts distance between the ability of a government to control the delivery of services and the ability of the people to hold their government accountable when things go wrong. Privatisation makes it easier for government to abrogate its responsibility for service provision and makes it easier for government to blame everyone else for problems that may arise. These familiar things and tensions have also arisen in the ongoing debate about our privatised airports.

Particularly controversial and ongoing issues that have arisen since the passage of the original act in 1996 include the fees charged by airport lease owners for airport users; the increasing aircraft noise from expanded or varied aircraft operations; and, possibly the most contentious of all, the expansion of non-aviation uses, including large retail and commercial office developments, on airport sites.

While privatisation of airports has brought many different interest groups into the debate—including investment banks, business representatives, airport lessee companies, state and local governments, residents groups, developers, airlines, freight companies and environment groups; the list goes on—ultimately it is the federal government that has oversight of significant legislation dealing with aviation, airports, transport and transport safety. The buck stops well and truly with the federal government and no amount of blame shifting by the federal government can change that fact. The Australian people expect their federal government to have ultimate responsibility for what happens at airports and on airport land that the government leases to private companies. Airports are not just transport hubs, they are the first port of call for most tourists to this country and they are, unfortunately, places where we must be ever-vigilant about security. They are also places where there is a very real potential for accidental incidents that cause enormous damage.

The scope and complexity of federal government responsibility for aviation and airport related matters is not going to diminish. Statistics provided by the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics show that, Australia-wide, passenger movements on domestic routes have increased by an annual average of 4.6 per cent since 1995-96 and that on international routes the average annual increase is 5.2 per cent. Regional airline passenger activity has increased by an average of 3.2 per cent each year since the same date.

At Adelaide Airport in my state, for example, that translates into revenue passenger movements increasing in number from 3,740,000 in 1995-96 to 5,760,000 in 2005-06. For a relatively small city, that is a very big increase. There is no reason to believe that the number of passenger and freight movements through Australia’s airports will reduce. The nation needs to be prepared to meet increasing demand.

Capital city airport precincts these days are major employment and service delivery centres. For example, Adelaide Airport precinct employs in the vicinity of 3,000 to 4,000 people. Whereas in the past a capital city airport precinct might have comprised a terminal and a few retail shops within it, a car park, airline and freight company offices, maybe some government offices, emergency services and possibly a petrol station, now an airport precinct is like a small city within a city. At Adelaide Airport precinct, in addition to all the things I mentioned earlier, we also have a childcare centre, restaurants, logistics companies, extensive government and private offices, and the ubiquitous and controversial large retail developments.

Like other airports, Adelaide also has a newish airport terminal—and I doubt that anyone who travels frequently to Adelaide would dispute that it is high time for South Australians to have a real, grown-up airport that has airbridges and an international terminal better than a tin shed. That airport was built with private investment. However, along with the positive developments in airports and aviation in Australia, many in our community—while they understand that modern aviation infrastructure and services are essential for Australia and acknowledge the role that private investment plays in delivering those objectives—believe their legitimate interests, rights and complaints have been ignored or not adequately dealt with under the current legislation. They look to the federal government for support.

There is no doubt that the federal government has been reluctant to acknowledge that all was not right with the legislation governing airport development. Public confidence in the ability of the government to genuinely take into account community concerns about inappropriate, non-aeronautical development was undermined when the minister gave the green light for the Perth brickworks site—an inappropriate use if ever there was one, and I am sure we will hear more about that shortly. Labor has moved a second reading amendment which condemns the government for undermining public confidence in the Airports Act through bad planning approvals like the Perth Airport one and the siting of the Essendon Direct Factory Outlets.

As a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport that inquired into this bill, I would like to express my appreciation to all the persons and organisations who made submissions to the inquiry and who attended the public hearing.

I also note the abiding interest of the member for Hindmarsh, Mr Steve Georganas, in all things to do with the Adelaide Airport in particular, which is in the middle of his electorate. Well before he became a member, Mr Georganas was active in his support for residents of Adelaide’s western suburbs, who watched as the airport grew to the enormous transport hub that it is today. As a member of parliament, he has introduced a private member’s bill to create the position of airport ombudsman, an initiative designed to give residents an independent person to whom they can take their complaints and issues about the airport.

I also acknowledge the hard work and commitment that Mayor John Trainer of the City of West Torrens Council puts into his role as a community representative and advocate for the businesses and organisations in his area that are aggrieved by what is happening at Adelaide Airport. Mr Trainer and his CEO, Mr Trevor Starr, travelled to Canberra to put their views on behalf of not only the residents of West Torrens but also all South Australian local councils.

The Senate committee also received submissions from the City of Salisbury, under the leadership of Mayor Tony Zappia, and from residents near Parafield Airport in Adelaide’s north, who view the increased usage of that airport—including the establishment of flying schools and on-airport land developments—as not always compatible with the right of local residents to a safe and habitable environment.

Similarly, I would like to acknowledge the written and verbal submissions of Mr Phil Baker and Mr John McArdle of Adelaide Airport Ltd. The issues between West Torrens council in my state and Adelaide Airport Ltd are not unfamiliar to other participants in this debate. Looking at the submissions to the Senate inquiry into this bill, I believe many will not be convinced that the proposed new legislation will do much to alleviate their concerns.

Tensions between airport operators and surrounding communities, over both aeronautical and non-aeronautical developments on airport land, occur on a number of fronts. Some of these concerns are dealt with to some extent in this bill, but some concerns of local communities are not dealt with and will no doubt continue to cause friction between all levels of government, airport developers, residents groups and individuals.

Broadly, this bill does the following things. It provides for making regulations that will allow airports specified in regulations, but not core regulated airports, to be exempt from the current prohibition on airlines owning more than five per cent of a company that is an airport operator company. The bill amends the act to take account of a 2005 Federal Court decision regarding non-aeronautical development on airport land, and adds that substantial trading or financial business must also be consistent with the relevant airport master plan. The bill inserts a new subsection that goes some way to clarifying the purposes of airport master plans, a deficiency in the current act that needs to be remedied.

The bill includes an amendment that will mean an airport master plan must contain reference to an Australian noise exposure forecast and to future flight paths, in accordance with any regulations for the purpose of this section of the act; however, we have not yet seen these regulations. The bill also provides for a draft or final master plan to include ANEF information that extends beyond the 20-year planning period, a measure introduced to give some additional certainty given the future anticipated increase in aviation usage in this country. A new master plan must be developed if a new ANEF is endorsed for the relevant airport.

The more controversial aspects of the amendments go to changes to the time allowed for public comment on drafts of master plans and major development plans and environment strategies. One of the most contentious aspects of modern airport usage is that developments on airport lands are not subject to the same state government and local council planning regimes as developments on off-airport land.

There is a sense in the community—rightly or wrongly—that airport developers can do whatever they like, without regard to what the impact may be on local roads, local residents, the environment, other businesses nearby and on people who, even if they are not using the airport or its non-aeronautical developments, must use roads in and around airports to travel from one part of a city to another. This sentiment, that the airport developers are allowed to get away with it, has been exacerbated by consultation and approval processes that have been criticised by local government, business representatives and residents groups who either do not have the opportunity to participate in consultation processes or do not believe their concerns are taken into account when they do participate. They do not know if their concerns actually make it beyond the airport operator company and are brought to the attention of the department and the minister as part of the approval process. The sentiment in the community that airport developers are allowed to get away with it has also been exacerbated by the fact that the minister had not refused any major development plans until the recent disallowance of the plan for Sydney airport.

Changes proposed by the government as part of this bill to shorten consultation periods fed into the disquiet felt by local councils and residents groups in particular, so much so that the government is amending its own amendment bill to increase the consultation period for draft plans from 45 days to 60 days. Labor does not support reduced consultation times, and it remains to be seen whether the government-proposed shortened time lines for consultation periods will prove adequate to quell disquiet about airport developments.

It is hoped the changes to the way interested parties are informed about developments will go some way to generating confidence in the planning, consultation and approval processes. Those changes include that, in addition to current requirements to publish information about plans and variations in local newspapers, the airport lessee company must publish advice on its website that the plan is to be made available for comment, a copy of the plan must be made available free of charge on the website throughout the consultation period and the airport lessee company must demonstrate how the company has had due regard to comments provided by the public, as opposed to simply stating it gave due regard to comments.

In addition, a new ‘stop the clock’ provision is proposed, whereby the minister may request that the airport lessee company provide specific information relevant to a decision-making process and, if that happens, the stated approval time for the minister will cease while this information is requested and provided.

The Senate committee report into the bill made some additional recommendations, including that the airport lessee companies be required to directly advise state, territory and local governments about commencement of the public consultation processes. This is intended to overcome the complaint that unless local authorities and other interested parties kept a watchful eye on advertisements in newspapers they would not know a consultation process was underway.

The Senate committee also recommended that any submissions that the airport lessee company received arising from the public consultation process be forwarded to the minister. These recommendations from the Senate committee reflect the unanimous view of the committee that there are indeed flaws in the current process of consultation and approval, and of course Labor supports these recommendations.

Labor believes there should be other changes to the bill to strengthen ministerial accountability and to build public confidence in what is happening at our airports. Labor believes we should remove the deeming provision in the current legislation which means a development is automatically approved if the minister fails to make an explicit decision within the appropriate time frames of the act. Labor also proposes a requirement of the minister to provide a statement of reasons if he or she overrides the recommendations from state or local government authorities. Further, Labor proposes that the department be required to have qualified town planners involved in the assessment of airport development plans. Apart from ensuring that expertise is always part of the approval process, it would go some way to assuring the public that persons qualified to contemplate the outcomes of a particular development plan are part of the process.

Other changes in this bill include lifting the threshold for a major development from $10 million to $20 million and allowing the minister to determine that the combined cost of consecutive or concurrent projects or extensions be included when deciding whether the cost of a proposal exceeds the threshold for major development projects. Whether or not airport lessee companies have in the past manipulated the current $10 million barrier and whether they would manipulate the new, higher barrier were matters of some interest at the Senate inquiry. Labor understands that the rationale for increasing the limit is based on increases in building costs since the original act was framed more than a decade ago. We take on board, however, the concerns raised by people who made submissions to the inquiry and believe the minister should not have the discretion to determine the combined cost but be required to determine it.

Whenever private developments on airport land are in the public arena, local governments rightly raise the issue of whether or not their ratepayers are getting a fair deal from the rate equivalent contribution regime that applies to airport lessee companies. At the Senate committee inquiry and at previous inquiries and reviews, local governments in particular have put the view that, while on-airport development is not subject to the usual local government planning and rating regimes, the impact on surrounding infrastructure such as roads, on off-airport businesses and on residential development is borne by local governments and their ratepayers. That is an argument that is unlikely to go away, but Labor acknowledges this and believes that the minister, when considering approval conditions for a proposal, should be required to take into account whether an agreement or a revised agreement should be negotiated between the airport lessee company and the local and state authorities. That should be an agreement that really does reflect the additional burden on local communities of on-airport development.

There are other amendments proposed in this bill which I have not dealt with but which were of interest to the Senate committee, particularly those relating to Canberra airport, the issue of gambling on airport land and the intention to allow persons or organisations approved by CASA to supply air traffic, fire and rescue services, which are currently supplied solely by Airservices Australia.

In conclusion, airport and airport land developments will continue to be controversial. Senators only need to see the expansion of office, retail and industrial developments near Canberra airport and the problems of traffic flow around that airport at peak times on inadequate roads surrounding the airport to realise that this issue will continue to occupy not only our attention but the attention of many in the community. It is unlikely that the legislation we are debating today will satisfy all the criticisms of the current system of planning and approval of developments on airport land. It is, in the scheme of things, a modest package of reforms and, while Labor supports the thrust of the bill, we believe the government has wasted an opportunity to do more to alleviate the ongoing and legitimate concerns of local government, residents groups and citizens about the issue of balancing community interests with commercial interests in and around airports.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My colleagues have done a very good job of pointing out the problems that have arisen in the planning and development stage of airport development. State governments are unhappy about aspects of it, as are local governments. My colleagues have outlined very well the instances of that occurring right around Australia. It is certainly a large problem. In my home state of South Australia, it has been no less a problem.

The Premier of South Australia, Mike Rann, took a lead through the Council for the Australian Federation. As chair of that council, he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister asking for concerns about master-planning issues to be addressed. It highlights the fact that once again we have the federal government not seriously consulting with state governments. The federal government say they recognise state government issues; they say they recognise that state governments should have an input and yet it appears, as these problems have developed over the past years, that they have not really sat down and talked to them. Mike Rann’s letter states:

In 1997 the Council of Australian Governments signed a Heads of Agreement on Commonwealth/State Roles and Responsibilities for the Environment. The Agreement provides that tenants and persons undertaking activities on Commonwealth land would be subject to State environment and planning laws. Under the terms of the Agreement the only exception, in relation to airports, is aviation airspace management and on-ground airport management. The Council for the Australian Federation maintains that the Australian Government has not regulated the planning of non-aviation airport developments in a manner consistent with State Government planning regimes as required by the COAG Agreement. Departure from the Agreement has potential consequences for the States and Territories.

Once again, we see this problem between the federal government’s understanding of an agreement and the collective state governments’ understanding of an agreement. There is slippage between the federal government and the Commonwealth. There has been an understanding that there is a good reason for the Commonwealth government to have some control of what happens at our national airports, but it has been in the implementation—in the way that the federal government has handled representation—that problems have arisen.

Of course, it is not only about planning and development issues; there is also concern by state governments that the development of non-aviation uses in airports in the future may limit aviation uses. I know that this is one of the concerns in South Australia. If you are crowded in by non-aviation uses of airports then, when airports and airlines want to expand for aviation uses, there is no room left and no capacity within the airport. At an airport such as Adelaide airport this is a problem because it is a city airport surrounded by suburbs, crowded in by the development which exists currently, with very little room for expansion. Sydney would have exactly the same kind of problem.

The state government is very concerned that, if its tourism or freight opportunities expand to any extent, airport users may find themselves limited by other lessees. I happen to think that there has been some justification for greater use of airport land where that is appropriate. Where you have large tracts of land, and many of our airports are located within valuable city property, there is some justification for the use of that land for commercial and retail purposes. I have no great difficulty with that but it must be with the caveat that it is important that local and state governments should be reasonably comfortable with that development and that it should not impinge on future aviation uses of that airport.

Probably the third major problem that has arisen since privatisation of the airports has been pricing issues. These have been a matter of great concern in the past for users of airports, and the ACCC regularly monitors and reports on them. A report was done by the Productivity Commission on fees charged by airport lease owners for airport users. It was completed in December 2006 but has not yet been publicly released by the government. While not an issue for the Airports Amendment Bill 2006, pricing may be a matter of future concern.

There are two issues here. One is that airport owners now derive a significant part of their income from non-airport related activities—that is, from leasing and developing their land assets. As we further have the situation where the airport lessees derive a great deal of income from non-aviation uses, it is going to be harder and harder to achieve changes if there have been any decisions that non-aviation usage should be limited or reduced. The tourism industry, for example, is reportedly very happy with the latest results of privatisation in terms of the usage numbers being up and so on but again expresses concerns about non-aviation related uses.

Those three issues illustrate very well one of the problems of privatisation. It may well be justified but then we have the issue of how much control of these essential services government retains or loses versus how much certainty a business would have in leasing that business. The current lessees of those airports signed the contract under a certain number of conditions with a reasonable expectation of being able to go into the future with those conditions and to develop their business as they saw fit. If parliament is constantly making changes to their operating conditions then that becomes a severe problem for them, and one that would not have been envisaged under the privatisation process. I do not imagine that when the government privatised the airports it quite imagined the airport lessees would be as innovative and entrepreneurial in the leasing of the land as they have in fact been.

There is a lot of discussion about whether regulation should be heavy-handed or light-handed. In fact, I think it is much more easily perceived as complicated regulation versus clear regulation. Every time we come back into this parliament and pass another bill which puts on another layer of regulation or modifies regulation, it becomes a much more complicated form of regulation rather than clear regulation that is logical, consistent and persistent.

This is one of the clear problems of privatisation and one of the reasons the Labor Party at least enter into it very warily. It is not only for ideological reasons but because we see exactly these sorts of problems arising time after time. The government’s specifications do not always clearly see well into the future and lessees might develop more competition and innovation. There might be great advantages on the business side of the equation but there are things not envisaged by the government in the privatisation which need to be redressed. Then we run into this issue of how much the government should be interfering in the running of a business by a company which took out a contract at the time of the privatisation.

Certainly, we cannot talk about competition here because, as has been pointed out in previous speeches, most of the airports are monopolies. This may be another factor that is driving this debate. State governments, local governments and business competitors see this as a monopoly in terms of both the business that runs it and Commonwealth control. Therefore there is a perception that there is very little ability to influence the way the business operates.

I am fairly certain that the government’s amendments will not see the end of this criticism of planning and development regulations, noise issues and non-aviation development issues. That is a great pity because it means that the lessees of those airports will not have certainty in their businesses in the future. We may well come back into the parliament on this. Certainly, the state government bodies, as demonstrated by the letter from the Chair of the Council for the Australian Federation, Mike Rann, have some very clear concerns about problems into the future, and we have not seen the end of non-aviation airport development. Clearly, airports are crucial infrastructure in our country and it is important that the government get it right this time. Unfortunately, it appears that they have not found the solution to it in this instance.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to 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.