Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to express my concern and dismay at an article in the Daily Telegraph entitled ‘Thrust for new jets at Bankstown’. Having gone through the whole process of getting a management plan for the next 20 years for Bankstown Airport—together with the member for Banks, winning the great victory on behalf of my constituents—banning 737 jets forever from Bankstown Airport as part of that process, arguing against 100-seater aircraft at Bankstown Airport, but that being allowed at 12 services a day, and having successfully seen off OzJet and its BAe146 passenger jets, this simply did not work; it did not get going. And yet the management of the complex that is now at Bankstown Airport—a commercial industrial complex as well as a GA airport—continues to drive for a passenger service that could be dubbed as a second stringer to Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport. I simply do not think that this will fly. It did not when the government tried to do it in 2000, and I do not think it will now.

The latest we have on this report is that the Airbus A318, which has a rate of descent of 7.5 per cent versus the normal three per cent—so it can get in and get out of Bankstown Airport, which is 250 metres longer than London City Airport, where they have already been approved—is being considered. The discussions between those who run the airport and the makers have focused on this being a way in which a 100-seater aircraft that is supposed to be a ‘small regional type’ could get in and out of Bankstown. The person from Airbus trying to flog it thinks it is terrific and that it can be used between Sydney and Canberra because of the number of public servants resident in the local area. Those public servants mostly work for the state government; they do not work for the federal government. Certainly, there have been drives before to try to get this kind of service running.

But the key question here is about the noise level. What we do not have at Bankstown is a way in which we could cap the noise coming out of the airport. If it is true the A318, as Kim Ellis, the airport chief executive says:

… is ideally suited to Bankstown, a small regional-type jet that is low noise and low impact—

then let us see it proven in the stats that come out, and proven vis-a-vis the BAe146 and vis-a-vis the other aircraft that use Bankstown Airport. The regional operators that use Bankstown Airport for charter services and so on, and particularly those who are in general aviation, who effectively feel that they are being forced out, would like to see the airport concentrate on the realities that are in front of them. Run this as Australia’s premier general aviation airport and run it as hard as you can to make it as efficient as it can be for the people it services. They should stop dreaming about being a second string of the KSA.