Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to speak to the Airports Amendment Bill 2015 today. The bill addresses deficiencies in regard to the Airports Act 1996 as these deficiencies create uncertainty and confusion about the process for establishing a second Sydney airport. Labor believe that Sydney needs a second airport sooner rather than later. We on this side of the chamber recognise that such infrastructure development is vital to continue economic growth. It is in this context that Labor support this bill.

The Airports Act 1996 was initially developed to address issues associated with the ongoing ownership and operation of our major airports following a process of privatisation that occurred in the early 1990s. It is focused on regulating ownership, planning and development of 21 federally leased airports. These 21 include all the main capital city airports around Australia. One of those privatisations was the lease of Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport, which was a transaction that occurred in 2002 under the Howard government. The legislation before us today seeks to deal with some of the unintended consequences of that transaction.

This bill also addresses the fact that the proposal for Sydney's second airport is based upon a greenfield development, and is something not contemplated by the regulatory structure of the current act. It also envisages the mandatory adoption of the environmental conditions in any airport approval. The opposition welcome that move because we believe that environmental best practice must underpin the development of Sydney's second airport. Sydney is a global city. Its efficient operation is central to the economic productivity, not just for New South Wales, but for the entire nation. Sydney's economic productivity is currently constricted by infrastructure limitations resulting in limited space and bottlenecks in the traffic network. There is broad consensus across experts that a second Sydney airport is needed.

The New South Wales and federal governments commissioned the joint study into Sydney's aviation needs which was commenced and completed under the former federal Labor government, reporting in March 2012. It warned that the economic consequences of inaction would be dire, including a $6 billion loss in national GDP by 2035. The key recommendation of the 3,000-page report was the development of a second Sydney airport. Handled properly, a second airport can provide important employment opportunities and jobs for tens of thousands of people in Western Sydney. The joint study found that, in the absence of a second airport in Sydney:

The number of total jobs that will not be created is estimated to grow over time as unmet demand increases. This is averaged to be 12,700 in NSW and 17,300 nationally over the period from 2011. In 2060 alone, the annual estimate of foregone jobs is approximately 57,000 in NSW and 77,900 nationally.

The Grattan Institute undertook detailed research last year, identifying geographic locations in which high-paying, high-productivity jobs are located. It noted:

Inner city areas and secondary commercial hubs, such as those around large cities’ airports, also tend to be more productive than other locations.

New employment opportunities generated by a new Sydney airport are not restricted to the airport site. Airports attract industry to their precincts. The importance of this cannot be overstated.

The 2013 State of Australian cities report made clear that Australia is undergoing a shift whereby jobs growth is moving from the suburbs to the inner city. Notwithstanding this shift in jobs to the city, housing remains most affordable in suburban areas. The result is that many Australians have to commute from their homes in the suburbs to their jobs in the city. The social consequences of this trend are significant. Many Australian parents are now spending more time commuting than they spend playing with their children. The construction of a second airport in Sydney would go a long way to addressing this challenge for families in Western Sydney. A second Sydney airport would not only increase economic growth but improve the lives of thousands of people who would be able to live closer to their workplaces. That means less time on the road for parents and more time with their family and friends.

The Airports Act was designed to deal with existing federally leased airports and does not address the development of an entirely new airport. This bill provides for the development of a master plan focused on the strategic and conceptual elements of the development proposal, as well as a process for initial major development plans. Once the development of the new airport is complete, the standard five-yearly approval arrangements that exist for all other federally leased airports will come into effect.

Importantly, Labor welcomes the bill's proposed strengthened role for the environment minister in making mandatory environmental conditions rather than, as is currently the case for other airports, making non-binding recommendations to the infrastructure minister. Labor emphasises that the EIS process which is being conducted under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 needs to be thorough, evidence based and transparent, with conditions that address environmental amenity as required. We welcome the commitment from the minister to allow a full process of concurrent community input into both the airport plan and the EIS later this year.

In conclusion, after working in government to lay the groundwork for the development of a second Sydney airport, Labor will continue to play a constructive role in making the project a reality. But in doing so we insist on proper process, including public consultation and assessment of environmental impacts. The project must focus on optimising the economic outcomes of such a development, including maximising employment opportunities for Australians. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Airports Amendment Bill 2015. This bill goes some of the way to clarifying the process around the construction of a new airport in Sydney and removes the veto that the Sydney Airport Corporation, which runs the existing airport, currently has over the construction of a new airport. The Greens are not opposed to changing the rules around the construction of another airport and requiring an environmental impact statement, but we want to place on the record that we feel that an airport at Badgerys Creek does not seem to stack up as the right option for Sydney residents. We are seeking to amend this bill to ensure that should the location of any future airport be moved away from Badgerys Creek the government cannot turn around and say, 'Here's an environmental impact statement we prepared earlier for Badgerys Creek; that'll do.'

The government is rushing to build the Badgerys Creek airport without an owner or a builder. All it has is a commitment to more than $2 billion for more congestion-inducing roads in Western Sydney. There will not be a rail connection, and high-speed rail is not under consideration at all. This is not the transformative approach that Sydney residents and visitors need. The push for Badgerys Creek lacks crucial detail and is instead based on a whole host of false assumptions. If an airport at Badgerys Creek goes ahead, residents will suffer. There is no way around the increase in aircraft noise. While the land around Badgerys Creek is yet to be developed, that certainly will not be the case in 2025, when the airport is first operational. When look at this we must not look at what Badgerys Creek will look like in 2015; we must look to what it will look like after it has been in operation for a while.

It is unlikely to have a curfew. In fact, proponents of Badgerys Creek have stated on numerous occasions that the only way the airport will be financially viable will be if it operates on a 24-hour basis. It is completely unfair to suggest that Western Sydney residents should be subjected to a 24/7 airport when residents in the inner west of Sydney and the inner city have appropriate respite with a curfew. This will not reduce aircraft noise around the existing airport either. In fact, it is far more likely that the creation of a second airport at Badgerys Creek will increase aircraft noise at Mascot. Badgerys Creek is expected to be a smaller airport with less hangar space and a smaller runway, similar to Avalon airport in Melbourne. And like at Avalon, Badgerys Creek will soak up demand for smaller, regional flights, leaving more arrival and departure slots open at Mascot for large, international jets. This means more aircraft noise, not less.

The benefit for jobs is not all it is cracked up to be. The Prime Minister's claim that the project will create 60,000 jobs is a fine example of pulling figures out of nowhere. The alleged job-creation figures have been used by several Western Sydney councils as well as Unions New South Wales to justify their support for Badgerys Creek. A more realistic scenario was developed by the New South Wales Business Chamber, which stands to gain enormous sums of money via the creation of another private—yet publicly subsidised—airport. They were relying on passenger movements estimated by the federal government's joint study into aviation capacity, and they slashed the job-creation estimates to one-sixth of Abbott's claim by 2040. It is quite clear that Abbott and the business lobby have inflated job-creation figures to boost support for Badgerys Creek.

But perhaps the worst part of this plan is the details of how people will get there and the impact of congestion on locals. There is $2 billion earmarked for massive, polluting roads and nothing for a rail connection. This is just going to put more pressure on roads. We know that the best way to unclog our roads is to give people the option of efficient, safe and affordable public transport. The jury is still out on the need for a second airport in Sydney. It has been challenged by numerous economists. In April, Fairfax economics editor Peter Martin wrote that he:

… would like to know the government had tried other solutions before settling on spending billions building a new airport in an inconvenient location.

It is these other options that we must be looking at. Imagine if we got serious about high-speed rail along the east coast of Australia. We could significantly reduce demand on our airports while delivering a much-needed boost to our regional centres. Yet we seem to be going around in circles.

The Melbourne-to-Sydney air route is the fifth-busiest air route in the world, and it is the third-busiest overland route—that is, a route where to travel overland is not straightforward. Sydney-to-Brisbane is pretty busy, too. The proportion of people who travel from Sydney to Canberra by air is ridiculous, given that the distance is under 300 kilometres.

The level of air travel into Sydney from Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra is the sign of a desperately underdeveloped rail system. Medium-fast services should be able to travel faster than cars but badly fail that benchmark in all directions. And of course high-speed rail would really compete against air travel between Sydney and Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra. What needs to happen is inclusion of the likely development of high-speed rail in the planning mix—to actually consider what that means for the number of flight arrivals and departures into Sydney.

Establishing a high-speed rail authority and reserving the route for high-speed rail are much more important than planning for a second airport in Sydney, because high-speed rail and good old ordinary, medium-fast, as-long-as-it was-efficient rail have the potential to be major factors enabling us to not only reduce the pressures on airports in Sydney but drastically reduce our transport related carbon pollution.

The rest of the world is moving on high-speed rail, so why not us? Other than Australia, Antarctica is the only other continent that does not have high-speed rail. And at the speed that we are moving on high-speed rail, it seems that the penguins are likely to beat us to it.

High-speed rail is affordable. You can tell this by the fact that the Chinese, the Japanese and the Spanish high-speed rail developers are all interested in coming to Australia and building high-speed rail as a purely private operation without needing public money. I am not saying that is the way that we should be heading, but the fact that they are interested in doing this shows you that there is a strong economic case for the development of high-speed rail along the east coast of Australia.

Without going to the transformative stage of high-speed rail, we need to make improvements to our existing rail services so that you can get from Sydney to Canberra, Sydney to Melbourne and Sydney to Brisbane faster than you can drive. This sort of thing is possible in every other country in the world where you have an efficient rail system. It needs to occur, and the way it has to occur is through putting more investment into improving our rail systems, not spending all that money on massive, polluting roads. We need affirmative action for public transport, because of the huge benefits to Australia that it would deliver.

I am not arguing that there is not a future for air transport, but we have to note that it is the most difficult form of transport to implement with zero carbon emissions. And that is where we need to be heading—we need to be reducing our carbon pollution to zero. The world is realising this. The world is moving on this. Country after country are having much more ambitious carbon reduction targets than Australia. The Pope has realised this as well. But it is clear from debate after debate in this chamber that Australia is very, very slow—as slow as the trains that travel between Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane. The good thing, of course, is that a better transport mix is not only low carbon but is better for local communities too. And the residents of Sydney deserve no less.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Airports Amendment Bill 2015. The Greens do not oppose this bill as we are supportive of measures designed to limit the authority of the privatised Sydney Airport Corporation to dictate transport policy in New South Wales. When Sydney Airport was privatised by the Liberal-Nationals not only did the government cede authority over an important level of transport policy in Australia; it handed monopoly control of air travel in and out of Sydney to a private company that paid no tax in the 10 years following privatisation. What a deal. Travellers in the community are in agreement that the privatisation of vital transport infrastructure has been a failure.

The privatisation of Sydney Airport has made it much more difficult for the government to pursue a sustainable, long-term and consultative plan around air travel in the Sydney region. As previously stated, the Greens do not oppose plans to grant the government greater authority vis-a-vis the Sydney Airport Corporation when it comes to the planning of air-travel infrastructure. The Greens do oppose, however, the current plan—supported by the Liberal and Labor leaderships—to build a supplementary Sydney airport at Badgerys Creek. This opposition is shared by many in the local community as well as local Labor and Liberal MPs. My colleague Senator Janet Rice, the Greens transport spokesperson, has set out our position with regard to this aspect of the bill.

The fact that this legislation has been brought on more than six months after the government announced its intention to construct an airport at Badgerys Creek shows the lack of momentum behind this project. The fact that the legislation explicitly expands the potential list of bidders for the construction and operation of an airport at Badgerys Creek shows how little success the government has had in securing any private support for its plan to build a new airport at Badgerys Creek. All we have seen so far has been an announcement, the funding of more roads and now this legislation—months after the fact.

Many in the community and experts in the infrastructure industry remain convinced that the Abbott government and the Labor opposition have little intention of actually constructing an airport at Badgerys Creek. Both the coalition and Labor are keen to be seen to be getting on with planning for a new airport as a way to present a jobs message for Western Sydney. We now know that this promise does not stack up.

Time will tell if Badgerys Creek is ever built. The Greens are concerned that the case for the project does not add up for locals and the environment, and this is clearly illustrated when we look at the promised jobs growth. When Prime Minister Tony Abbott made his announcement last year regarding Badgerys Creek airport, many of the assumptions used by the coalition and the building lobby to build support for the airport were reported in the media as fact. As a result, much of the debate around the benefits of Badgerys Creek as a location for a second Sydney airport lacks accurate detail.

In his announcement, Prime Minister Abbott stated that the construction and operation of Badgerys Creek airport would create 60,000 jobs—60,000 jobs is a lot, and the announcement was clearly made to impress people. It was over an unspecified time frame. When you see that, it makes you wonder. The alleged job creation figures have been used by several lobby groups to justify their support for an airport at Badgerys Creek. No sources were presented for the Prime Minister's 60,000 jobs figure claim. It has been argued that to achieve such a high figure the airport would have to have passenger movements rivalling Heathrow Airport in London or Los Angeles airport—a feat unlikely to be repeated at a supplementary airport at Badgerys Creek.

The only recent estimation of jobs created by the construction and operation of a Badgerys Creek airport was conducted by the New South Wales Business Chamber, a lobby group for the business sector who obviously stand to gain enormously by the creation of another private—yet, publicly subsidised—airport and the associated publicly subsidised infrastructure to service the airport. Their report estimated that 30,000 jobs be created by 2050—at least they gave us a time frame. Now that figure is already half of the figure touted by the Prime Minister and reported in the media, time and time again. However, this figure also relies on the assumption—

Debate interrupted.