David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Airports Amendment Bill 2006 and the government amendment. As members opposite have indicated, in principle, the concept of this bill has bipartisan support because of the investment that is required for airport infrastructure. That recognises that Australia, possibly more so than any other nation, has relied on aviation both for the transport of people and freight, emergency services, defence and a range of other activities. A large part of that comes down to having the appropriate infrastructure in place to enable training, general aviation operations as well as commercial, charter and regular public transport operations to be in place. When the ALP introduced this bill back in September 1995, the concept was supported in practice by the coalition government, who then actually brought the bill to fruition in 1996.

As well as talking about some of the specific provisions of the bill, I wish to look at the underlying purpose of the bill. This is even reflected in the second reading speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services in November 2006. She talked about how, under the Airports Act, proposals for development come back to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. She said:

Developments have included non-aeronautical development on airport land where that is consistent with the long-term development of the airport as an airport.

I think that is an underlying point that all parties involved—whether they be government, local government, airport owners or operators, or other people—need to remember. The primary purpose of these pieces of Commonwealth land, which have been set aside and leased to allow further investment, is not to be predominantly a commercial enterprise around retail or other operations; they are predominantly there as airports. My comments will be along some of those lines.

I turn now to some of the specific points of the bill. I am aware that there has been some concern about, as well as some benefits from, non-aviation related developments. Adjacent to the electorate of Wakefield is the airport of Parafield. I am aware that, for example, the Bunnings Warehouse that is there is utilised by a broad range of people from across Wakefield—as are a number of other retailers who have established on the site of Parafield Airport. There is perceived to be, and indeed there is, a broad community benefit derived from those developments. I do not think anyone would seek to oppose them completely.

However, there are other retailers who have had to comply with local government planning restrictions. Local governments who have sought to actually plan developments for the whole of the area feel as though their whole process has been usurped by the fact that developers can come in and, separately to their plans, establish on Commonwealth land. Part of those concerns, particularly from the councils’ perspective, is that where things like road infrastructure are required there needs to be adequate consultation. For that reason I am pleased to support the government amendment which increases the period of consultation to 60 business days. That allows people to have input into developments. It is broadly consistent with—and, in fact, exceeds—some of the other state and territory development planning requirements.

Under the South Australian Development Act 1993, the public comment period for a major development for something like an environmental impact statement or a public environmental report is six weeks and for a development report it is three weeks. So this is not inconsistent with that. Another thing that has been talked about is the lifting of the threshold from $10 million to $20 million. That does accurately reflect the increased cost of doing business, particularly since it includes all site preparation. I think that is an appropriate change.

What I would like to talk mainly about, though, is this other broader implication—the underlying issue of what is the primary purpose of the airport. I have briefly touched on the importance of air travel for Australia. I believe that the comments in the second reading speech in November 2006 need to be the basis upon which all parties involved move ahead. To reiterate: the developments on airport land that are non-aeronautical must be consistent with the long-term development of the airport as an airport. Part of the reason this is important is that people who do not understand aviation, aviation operations and, particularly, aviation safety, say, logically enough, ‘What are the regulations? As long as we meet those regulations we’ll be fine to move ahead.’

I was interested to see in the June 2000 Senate committee report and recommendations that the committee considered that it would raise public faith in the airport corporation—in this case the Brisbane Airport Corporation—if the corporation were to demonstrate a willingness to go beyond the minimum legislative requirements to meaningfully consult and consider the public as it proceeded with the airport development. I would argue that going beyond the minimum requirements also needs to apply to their liaison and engagement with other stakeholders, such as the operators. I am talking here particularly about general aviation airports where those operators are not large firms. They are normally small operators who are working to pretty tight margins and do not have a lot of capacity to adapt, when costs are involved, to changes that are imposed upon them. I think that consultation—which was pushed by the Senate committee in that report—is something that needs to be carried out in good faith by airport corporations. Just meeting the minimum requirements is not necessarily all that is going to be required. It is interesting to note that, when the various airport corporations look at requirements, they do not necessarily see that if there is an impact on aviation operations then perhaps they need to reconsider what they are planning to do.

The strategic plan for the Sydney Airport Corporation Ltd looks at the range of their operators, and some of the operators include general aviation and helicopters. They make the comment that they are not going to invest any further in those facilities. They think they are adequate for the current range of operations. But they imply they believe that in the future the flexibility of those operations may reduce due to tighter regulations or operational restrictions. My argument is that, if the primary purpose of that land being made available is for aviation operations, then developments and modifications are the things that need to be limited, as opposed to those developments and modifications limiting the aviation operations. I think there is a fundamental difference in position there that needs to be considered.

To a certain extent, we see that already. The decision by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services this year to not approve the development of a shopping precinct near Sydney airport on the basis of safety was a welcome decision, but it raises this whole issue of regulation versus reason. I use those two words very deliberately, and I will explain why. Regulations are, if you like, the things that set the minimum standard. They also link into, from an aviation perspective, the Reason concept. The Reason model is a safety model that is used broadly in the aviation community, where it recognises that there is no one element of an aviation operation that is going to guarantee safety.

The original model that Reason put up was that safety was like trying to shoot a ray of light through a number of slices of Swiss cheese. Every slice had holes in it—no slice was perfect—but, as long as you had enough slices and as long as all the holes did not line up, you could stop that beam of light from getting through and you could prevent an accident. But, the more holes you had in those slices, the more you increased the chance of something happening. So, if every single element of safety—whether it be regulation, air crew training, the equipment in question, the airport standards we have designed or the weather minima that are in place—is right at its minimum, that is the equivalent of having a number of pieces of Swiss cheese with big holes in them, which increases the possibility of an accident.

I believe what the committee said: corporations should demonstrate a willingness to go beyond the minimum legislative requirements to consult and this should also be extended to their approach to the minimum requirements in terms of who is operating at their airport, what other factors come into play, and how they collectively work together to ensure that they can be viable as a business with their lease holding and that the aviation operations can continue profitably and, most importantly, safely.

There are guidelines. There is the manual of standards; part 139 for aerodromes is the base that people use now, but there are other standards such as advisory publications. CAAP 92-1 looks, for example, at aeroplane landing areas, and it has principles in it. For example, at paragraph 8.4, titled Geographic Location, it states:

A landing area should not be located:

(c)

where take-off or landing involving flight over a populated area creates an unnecessary hazard.

You can have RPT, regular public transport, operations into a main airport. Generally speaking, they are taking off and landing over set approach and departure routes. So the exposure per flight is literally that approach and take-off.

When you go to a GA airport, though, and training operations are under way, you see that circuit training is quite common. Aircraft are taking off, flying a circuit around the immediate area of the airport and coming back in to land. If risk is a combination of consequence and exposure then what we are seeing there is that there is a far larger exposure where those aircraft are doing training operations. In terms of populating the area around the airport, generally speaking, airports were put there with minimum obstacles around the runway, but also in the back of people’s minds was the thought that we have student pilots and we have aircraft that are not necessarily built to the same standards. You have the FAR 23 for GA and the FAR 25 standard, which is applied to different aircraft depending upon the level of safety for regular public transport operations.

So there is a range of factors. It is a bit like the Reason model: we are now starting to get more holes in those pieces of cheese. It is important that, just as the CAAP provides in the guidance, we should not be unnecessarily flying over populated areas. When we look at how much we actually bulk out areas around a GA airport, we also need to take that into account from a flight safety perspective. Then we have things like operational limitations. Increasingly, aircraft are becoming equipped for flight and instrument meteorological conditions. In fact, CASA are encouraging people to use GPS technology and to have non-precision approach runways. There are standards that apply to that, but the standards that apply under CAAP 89P look at the approach obstacle limitation surface and gradient. It extends that quite considerably compared to a non-instrument rated runway in terms of the amount of obstacle-free area that has to be there.

When obstacles are there, it means that in designing the approach, particularly the circling minimum—that is, when you come down, you break free of cloud and you have to circle around to land—there has to be a given height between obstacles and that circling minimum. Every time we put buildings in there, particularly two-storey or higher buildings, that raises the minima for those approaches. The designers have to take that into account. That starts placing operational restrictions on aircraft that could have got in with no buildings there, but now they cannot make that approach or they perhaps need to carry alternate fuel to go somewhere else because these new obstacles within the OLS area are pushing the minima higher.

The regulation is one thing—it defines the minimums—but the Reason model of flight safety indicates that there are a number of factors that have to be considered. My call to the airport operators is that when they are looking at their consultation, they should use this period that the government amendment approves not only for extended community consultation—to speak to local councils and to the local community, and my understanding is that that process is improving—but also to consult closely with not just the large RPT companies, but also, particularly at GA airports, with the smaller operators and really understand what the implications are of development on both the safety and the effectiveness of operations in terms of both physical hazards and operational limitations with things like implications for IFR approach and procedures.

Aviation is an important industry for Australia. We cannot afford to price them or regulate the training and the breeding ground for our pilots—which is often in the GA world—out of business. Part of that requires a partnership on the part of the airport owners in their consultation. I welcome the decision earlier this year by the minister, which was based on a safety case, to not go ahead with the development, and I think that principle should be applied more broadly to ensure the continuation, viability and safety of all aviation operations in Australia.

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