Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on one aspect of the government's recent budget: the $5.3 billion commitment to construct an airport in Western Sydney. They say there is a business plan. It is not public, and I have not seen it. But with a commercial operator choosing to walk away from the project, there would want to be a rigorous plan for something that is going to take $5.3 billion of taxpayer funds over the next decade. There is no transparency on how that figure has been arrived at, nor on what exactly it will deliver. I am not aware of any other single infrastructure project of this size. The only thing that really compares is the NBN, and do not get me started on that.

I am curious about what sort of airport this government is planning to build. There are so many different versions of what it might be. When those in my electorate, especially those in the Blue Mountains, are worried about noise, we are dismissed and told, 'You won't notice.' When we are worried about noise at night, we are reassured there will not be that many flights and they will be able to avoid residential areas. At the same time, we are told that the need for an airport in Sydney to operate 24 hours a day is desperate, urgent. If that is the case, yet there are not that many planes wanting to come in at night, surely a more economic solution would be to allow those few flights to use Sydney Airport. Or perhaps there really are a large number of flights desperate to land at two, three or four o'clock in the morning, in which case, how exactly is that going to work without disturbing residents in Western Sydney? In the same breath as we are being told that we will not notice the noise because airplanes are quieter now, we are told that it will be mainly low-cost carriers and freight that will want to use Western Sydney Airport, and they do not have the latest and greatest aircraft. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has the view that Badgerys Creek needs to be built as a low-cost airport, with facilities suited to these budget carriers. 'It can't be a Taj Mahal,' he has said, 'It has to be cheaper than Kingsford Smith.'

On the other hand, we hear that this is an opportunity to build a state-of-the-art, eco-friendly, super quiet, super smart airport that will lead the world in environmental standards, in spite of the fact that the EIS does not demand state of the art. We are told that it will create tens of thousands of jobs, yet apparently there are not enough people to justify a rail line. We are told that there will be huge benefits for all of Western Sydney while in the same breath we are told that many of the people who work there will live within 30 minutes of the airport—this idealised 30-minute city—without public transport. We are told Badgerys Creek is ideal because no-one lives there, yet the government is talking about building a new city, a third city, an aeropolis, at one end of the runway—or maybe at both ends. Perhaps this is where the people who will work at Badgerys will live. How does that benefit the rest of Western Sydney? Why wasn't that been assessed as part of the environmental impact statement?

We are told that it will create some sort of economic boon, with benefits flowing throughout all of Western Sydney. At the same time, it seems that future defence industry jobs will be sucked out of my electorate at RAAF Base Richmond and into the new whiz-bang precinct at Badgerys. We are told that Western Sydney wants it, yet none of the business people driving this over many years seem to live in Western Sydney. But they know what is good for us! Sydney Airport does not want to build it, but we are told that investors all over the place are itching to get their hands on it. In spite of that, the government is not going to offer it to any of them but will build it itself—gifted, as we know it is, in completing construction projects on time and on budget.

My region of the Blue Mountains has been told there will be huge economic benefits with a massive influx of tourists. But there is no planned investment in local roads or in local infrastructure. We are told that there will be tons of consultation about the flight paths, yet the runway direction is set, and contracts for works are due to be done by the end of the year. We are told that it will have no impact on World Heritage in the fragile Blue Mountains landscape, yet we are also told that it will be as big as Heathrow and will operate 24 hours a day, with 100 per cent of incoming flights needing to traverse the Blue Mountains. And city politicians and businesspeople want it to funnel people into the CBD, rather than improving Western Sydney public transport. So is it an airport that gets people into Sydney, or is it for Western Sydney? Are they building an airport to service the people of Western Sydney where they develop it with Western Sydney, or are they building an airport to flog off to the highest bidder to make money on the back of Western Sydney? Let's unpack some of these contradictions and questions.

I look for equity in things, and lack of equity is at the heart of the make-up of the Western Sydney Airport forum known as FOWSA—rhymes with 'wowser'! It is charged with being the key community consultation process for flight path design, according to the government's own documents. Let's look at the community forum for Sydney Airport. It includes 11 federal MPs, including the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Urban Infrastructure. To be clear, the minister is not there in his capacity as minister but as the member for Bradfield. In fact, SACF includes a spot for every local federal member whose electorate aircraft flies over, including those on the Upper North Shore. So, in fairness, do we see the same make-up for Western Sydney's forum? Yeah, right! There are two federal MPs and one senator—two!—whereas, by my calculations, there are around 11 seats that will be impacted by new or changed aircraft noise, none more so than the now tranquil Blue Mountains, which is set to be subjected to 100 per cent of the flights coming in to the airport 24 hours a day.

It is therefore disappointing that two very strong Blue Mountains nominees for community reps for FOWSA were overlooked. Peter Dollin, current president of the residents' action group, RAWSA, and Jon Rickards, a long-time member of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society, both have serious fears for the impacts of the airport. However, both were willing to contribute their professional expertise to the process. Peter, a long-time director for a global firm, and John, a retired school principal and science teacher, would have brought an ability to analyse and digest the technical information required by FOWSA and also had ready-made communication links to the active Blue Mountains community. To leave them both off FOWSA, when my electorate has been the most vocal in expressing its concerns about the airport plan—with 80 per cent of the nearly 5,000 responses to the EIS coming from the Blue Mountains—is a disgrace. So if you are looking to not only be fair about this community consultation process but also be seen to be fair, this government is failing on both counts.

The west is being told that there will be an economic benefit coming from the planned airport. I have no doubt that somebody is going to make a lot of money. Certainly landowners who have previously grazed cattle will be seeing dollar signs. But I question what economic benefits will flow for my electorate. Defence giant Northrop Grumman has just announced that it will set up at the Badgerys site—possibly good for the southwest, although it would be nice to see them pay some tax! But Blue Mountains councillor Don McGregor has already raised concerns about how irresistible our Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage valleys could be to these makers of drones for flight testing.

But my concern lies predominantly with the implications of the government's announcement of a high-tech defence and aerospace precinct at the Western Sydney Airport site. We already have an investment of defence industries at Richmond RAAF base. Northrop Grumman already has a significant presence at Richmond through its depot-level maintenance, repair and modification of C-130H Hercules aircraft. But what is the future? The Hercs are expected to last until 2030/2035. After that, who knows what will replace them or where those aircraft will be based?

It is no secret that Defence has had questions for decades about the long-term role of the RAAF base at Richmond, with Air Marshal Leo Davies' comments last year reigniting that issue. What I think is concerning timing is that the Hercs' anticipated end of life coincides with the early years of operation of the planned Badgerys, yet there is no discussion about this by the government. When it talks about the economy of the west, it cannot ignore the rest of the west, including the Hawkesbury. Richmond is perfectly placed for an expanding defence industries role. In fact, that could provide the Hawkesbury with the long-term economic driver that it craves.

With the allure of the shiny new Badgerys site, what is the future for Richmond or other parts of Western Sydney? Are we doomed to see all new economic activity sucked into the Badgerys vortex? Let's look at the jobs projections. The information to date is confusing at the very least. We have the federal Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, Angus Taylor, talking about a city deal that will transform the lives of Western Sydney's two million residents through an aerotropolis that will offer, he says, tens of thousands of jobs. In his budget night speech, the Treasurer said the new airport would create 20,000 jobs by the early 2030s. However, data from the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development says that by the 2030s the airport is expected to provide 9,000 direct jobs and over 4,000 in on-site business parks. That adds up to 13,000. That is a difference of 7,000 from the Treasurer's own figures. And we are talking about the 2030s, maybe 15 years away. The expectation that a 25-year-old unemployed person in Windsor will suddenly have work coming out of their ears thanks to Western Sydney Airport is a total myth. They will be 40 before the place is operational, and even then there will be no train to catch to get to work. The jobs are merely being shifted from other parts of Sydney—the EIS talks about that and the Northrop Grumman announcement is an example of it. Many jobs could be created without a slab of tarmac as their centrepiece.

Where do robotics and automation fit into this equation? Surely a high-tech precinct will demand a high-tech airport; what would be the point otherwise? What are the consequences for job numbers at an airport where a human being need not be involved in the entire process from check-in to baggage handling to any other routine customer service interactions? This is not the future; this is the now at many airports around the world. Which will it be for Western Sydney Airport: jobs heavy or automation heavy?

Where do the headlines of a jobs boom and a new city in the west leave existing residents of the west? Will we see two Western Sydneys? It has never been a homogenous place, and I do not know why people who very clearly comprehend the difference between the inner west, the inner city, the Eastern Suburbs and the North Shore—in other words, the east of Sydney—assume that we are all the same. But will this create a glitzy, ritzy enclave that works and plays in a flash, high-tech new city, and what will that mean for old Western Sydney? I cannot speak for all of Western Sydney; I would not presume to. But I can speak for my part of Western Sydney—that is, the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury. We do not want all of the downside and none of the upside, and right now the downside is all I can see.

Given what I have said, it is understandable that I remain unconvinced of the upside of this project, so let's just recap the downside. There will be the noise, day and night, of a 24-hour airport across some of the quietest parts of our nation, the World Heritage Blue Mountains and heading north through the Hawkesbury. There will be the visual disturbance. Right now you can stand at Echo Point and not see a plane, but that may not be what the future holds. Of course, we will not know this until flight paths are determined, and even then it will not cover holding patterns. There is the unknown pollution impact over time for the World Heritage area. There has been no way to even assess what the impact might be. There is potentially the sucking away of Defence industries from RAAF Base Richmond. That would be a real economic blow to my community.

There are no rail links for people in the Blue Mountains or Hawkesbury to get to the airport. According to the government, they are not interested. There are not even the extra benefits that a north-south rail line would bring whether or not we had an airport. That alone would be an economic boon for our communities and allow people to access jobs in a different part of the city, instead of all being funnelled into the CBD. There will be more traffic on the M4, already one of the most congested roads we have. There are no planned upgrades for the M4. The only upgrade planned for Blue Mountains roads is an intersection at Glenbrook. That is something that has been on the cards for a really long time, but this government has linked it to Western Sydney Airport. It is an upgrade that should have happened whether or not we had an airport.

There is nothing to help the Blue Mountains capitalise on this supposedly new boom in tourism. We are struggling to understand why tourists would want to come to the Blue Mountains—perhaps to watch the planes fly overhead—other than for the reasons they come now, which is for peace and quiet, something you do not get in the city but something you can get as you cross the Nepean and head up into the mountains.

So, really, the question on all of this remains. When people ask me why the Blue Mountains in particular is opposed to the plans for this airport, it comes down to the question: who is being put first here? We certainly do not feel that our communities are having any say in this: you do not put our people on your community forum, you do not give us a way of consulting and you make claims that have no evidence and are not able to be backed up, and you tell us to be grateful. Unfortunately, the approach this government is taking is not one that my community believes is the right approach.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: at what point do we put communities first, people first? If this government and this parliament fail to provide the right plan and then the rigor and scrutiny that a project of this impact warrants—before it is built and not while it is being built—then I have no doubt that we will be rightly condemned by future generations who call the west home.

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