Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Brisbane Airport Corporation has plans to develop a new parallel runway at Brisbane Airport. This was first put forward to the people of Brisbane’s south side and north side back in 1997 when the Brisbane Airport master plan was released.

Since they first put forward this proposal for a new parallel runway, on four separate occasions I have been in court either with the federal government or with the Brisbane Airport Corporation, through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and then the Federal Court, in an attempt to stop this runway proceeding. In fact, the substantive matter that I put to the Brisbane Airport Corporation is that they should not proceed with the construction of that runway until they had conducted a proper cost-benefit analysis of all alternative runway options. That has never been done.

However, as for the last leg of that court process before the Federal Court, the record shows that the federal government and the Brisbane Airport Corporation defeated me. As a result, costs of $32,000 were awarded against me, which I was required to meet personally. Again, I place on record my thanks to Brisbane’s southside community for raising most of those funds on my behalf.

When it comes to what has happened since then, the Brisbane Airport Corporation, having obtained approval by the federal government through the transport minister of the Brisbane Airport master plan, have gone to the final stage of the development approval process—and that is through its major development plan and simultaneously through its environmental impact assessment. These two documents have been released to the community for final comment in recent weeks. I am in the process of contacting all members and residents of Brisbane’s southside community to encourage them to have a direct input into the final determination of this by the federal government.

I have stated repeatedly on the public record that I do not believe that I can now stop this thing from proceeding, because I have been defeated in the courts on this question. Once the federal Minister for Transport and Regional Services approves this major development plan and the EIS, the last regulatory approval will be in place for the Brisbane Airport Corporation to proceed with construction of this new runway.

The key challenge therefore for me, as the representative of the people in Brisbane’s southside community, is developing an effective noise management plan for this new proposed runway. It will have a significant effect on the residents in my community. It will have an effect on schools and people’s houses. It will have an effect on people’s quality of life. I am deeply concerned about that and I have stated my concern in this chamber on many occasions over the last seven or eight years. The challenge is to manage the impact of this, and therefore my request to the federal government will be to work with me and other representatives to develop an effective noise management plan for this new major imposition on Brisbane’s southside residents.