John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the constituents I represent in my electorate of Lowe in Sydney’s inner west, I again grieve about the ongoing failure of the Howard government to solve the aircraft noise problems affecting residents in Sydney. I have lost count of the number of questions on notice that I have tabled in this House over nine years to both the Minister for Transport and Regional Services and the Prime Minister concerning aircraft noise associated with Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport. Each and every time my questions have been arrogantly dismissed by successive Ministers for Transport and Regional Services and the Prime Minister. I will not stop putting questions on the Notice Paper to the Howard government and I will continue to hold the Howard government accountable until justice is done for the people of Sydney and my constituents of Lowe.

As I mentioned to the House and to the Prime Minister shortly before question time today, current statistics published by Airservices Australia reveal that aircraft movements to the north of Sydney airport make up 31.78 per cent of all aircraft movements. This is among the worst results since the long-term operating plan was introduced by the Howard government in 1996.

It is timely to remember the history of the mismanagement of Sydney airport. On 13 February 1996, just prior to the 1996 election, the coalition released its aviation policy entitled ‘Soaring into tomorrow’. In that aviation policy was the coalition’s then solution to aircraft noise problems in Sydney. In it the coalition announced that it would not sell Sydney airport ‘until there is a satisfactory solution to the current aircraft noise problem in Sydney’. As it turns out, that policy was not worth the paper it was written on. In a monumental act of betrayal, the Howard government flogged off Sydney airport for a ridiculous $5.6 billion. Worse still, the government sold it without fixing the aircraft noise problems in the inner west or placing any caveats on the airport’s new owners with respect to noise reduction.

The practical repercussion from this unilateral decision of the Prime Minister was to abandon a core policy promise to ensure that Sydney’s aircraft noise problem would be resolved before the sale. The failure to provide any real solution for the distribution of aircraft noise prior to the sale of Sydney airport means that the inner west residents of Lowe and Grayndler have had to endure the brunt of Sydney airport’s relentless demand growth. Rather than impose conditions on the sale of Sydney airport, the Howard government pandered to commercial interests and laid the path for the inner west to be bombarded with aircraft noise. This has meant more planes, bigger planes and more noise. Rather than shield my constituents from unfair levels of noise, the Howard government gave carte blanche to the private operators of the airport.

Under the master plan, we have been promised that over the next 20 years we will get close to 500,000 aircraft movements. How dare the Howard government sell out the people of Sydney, including those in my electorate of Lowe. Despite selling out residents in the inner west, the Prime Minister did no such thing in his now marginal seat of Bennelong. That brings me to the age-old issue of the Prime Minister’s deliberate direction of flights away from his electorate and over the roofs of residents in Lowe and elsewhere. ‘Put the aircraft noise anywhere but not in my backyard’ is the Prime Minister’s mantra. On 14 August 2007, Mr Howard made an extraordinary admission in an interview with Jenny Brockie, on the SBS Insight program:

I stick up for a cause I think is just in my own electorate. This is not the first time I have done it. I mean, I stuck up very strongly years ago before I was Prime Minister for my residents in relation to aircraft noise when you had the notorious Bennelong funnel, they used to call it, where the former government used to, one could be forgiven for suspecting they made sure the planes flew over my electorate and not over neighbouring electorates. I will stick up for my local constituents if I think they have a just case.

As the federal member for Lowe I too believe the residents of Lowe have a ‘just cause’. Yes, I too, along with many members of other federal electorates, including Grayndler, Sydney, Watson, Kingsford Smith, Wentworth, Barton, Blaxland and North Sydney, may, to use the Prime Minister’s own words, be forgiven for suspecting the government has made sure the planes fly over our electorates and not over Bennelong. The numerous speeches I have given in this House and the hundreds of questions on notice I have tabled prove that it is the Prime Minister who has substituted the ‘Bennelong funnel’ with the ‘Lowe funnel’. That is what we now have: aircraft are funnelled over the rooftops of Lowe, almost invariably using flight modes 9 and 10, which means that planes frequently take off and land over the rooftops of my constituents. Each and every day the LTOP target of 17 per cent of all movements to the north of Sydney airport is routinely breached by almost twice that number. What may we say to the Prime Minister? What possible conclusion can we reach from this fact? Again to use the Prime Minister’s own words, we could be forgiven for suspecting that this government, since 1996, has made sure the planes fly over the electorates of Lowe and elsewhere and not over Bennelong.

Now that the airport is a private business we may never, ever see the inner west aircraft noise problems properly resolved. Indeed, commercial pressure may be applied on the Howard government to take a sledgehammer to rules that are there to protect us. As if this is not unfair enough, further insult to injury is added by arrogant disregard for sufferers of aircraft noise in Sydney. In the lead-up to the 1996 election, pamphlets were distributed in the Lowe electorate promising the following:

No new areas in Lowe will be affected by aircraft noise.

The pamphlet went on to quote the Prime Minister, John Howard, in a press statement he made on 8 February 1996:

I want to state categorically that those who have not been affected by disruptive and loud aircraft noise in the past in the seat of Lowe will not be affected in the future. Additionally, the Coalition’s policy will result in a dramatic reduction in flights over the electorate of Lowe. The federal seat of Lowe will experience a very substantial reduction in aircraft noise.

The brochure concludes with the brave promise that ‘we will halve the number of planes over Lowe’. To say that residents in Lowe were betrayed and abandoned following the sale of Sydney airport is a gross understatement. The Southern Cross Airports Corporation Holdings Ltd annual report of 2003 states:

On 25 June 2002, the Commonwealth Government announced the sale of Sydney Airport to the Southern Cross Airports Consortium for $5.6 billion. The sale transaction was completed on 28 June 2002, at which time Sydney Airport Corporation Limited (SACL) was acquired by Southern Cross Airports Corporation Pty Limited.

Southern Cross Airports Corporation Pty Limited (SCAC) is the parent company and Southern Cross Airports Corporation Holdings Limited (SCACH) is the ultimate parent company of SACL.

That statement was signed by none other than the former long-time head of staff to the Prime Minister, Mr Max ‘the Axe’ Moore-Wilton. At the time of that statement, Mr Moore-Wilton was both Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Southern Cross Airports Corporation Holdings Ltd. What more evidence of complicity do we need than that? The Prime Minister’s former chief of staff himself oversaw the sale of the Sydney Airport Corporation Ltd to Southern Cross precisely opposite to the 1996 coalition’s aviation policy that Sydney airport would not leased ‘until there is a satisfactory solution to the current aircraft noise problem in Sydney’.

The betrayal of the people of Sydney with respect to aircraft noise problems is complete. For the reasons I have just given, there can be no trust or confidence in the systematic nature of the misrepresentations of successive coalition governments to the people of Sydney, including my constituents of Lowe. Now that Sydney airport has been privatised, there are only limited options to ensure that aircraft noise problems in the inner west are not exacerbated. The sale of Sydney airport may mean that the Howard government has made it difficult to resolve aircraft noise distribution problems in the inner west, but the government cannot sit back and allow the problems to get worse. The Howard government cannot allow the interests of a privatised Sydney airport to keep outweighing the interests of the inner west residents. Inner west residents who are woken up by the sound of jet engines should have a right to complain to an independent umpire with investigative powers, not to a token hotline that is regularly ignored, as is the case currently.

The Sydney Airport Corporation has no right to be above scrutiny and accountability. The government must establish an aviation ombudsman to oversee all operations at Sydney airport. Furthermore, despite the apparently intractable commercial bind this government has sacrificed to Southern Cross—a consortium headed by Macquarie Bank—a legal way must be found to enforce the long-term operating plan and to ensure that the people of Sydney are protected against unfair distribution of aircraft noise.

The usage of Sydney airport is only set to increase with time. The full privatisation of Sydney Airport Corporation Ltd means that Macquarie Bank—‘the ‘millionaires’ factory’—will continue to suck every ounce of blood from its investment. This will mean more parallel runway operations in order to increase the number of flights in and out of Sydney airport. It will also mean that Sydney will eventually become a jet-only airport. The flights over Sydney are guaranteed to increase in size and number. Eventually, in perhaps five or 10 years, Sydney airport will become another Heathrow—outgrown and suffering diseconomies of scale. All this is the result of a totally failed aviation policy, cynically made in 1996 and founded upon misleading promises that were, in hindsight, never going to be honoured.

We in the inner west are now paying a heavy price for the greed and treachery of this government. We have only the Howard government to thank for this shameful situation. Those affected by aircraft noise in Sydney cannot wait to flog the Howard government on election day, because it has betrayed the people of Sydney at every opportunity. (Time expired)