Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Adelaide Airport has willingly complied with ministerial direction to establish and maintain the Adelaide Airport Consultative Committee. Naturally, much of the consultative committee’s concerns are with all sorts of aviation issues. It has committee members from a whole range of industries that are involved in aviation. It has representatives from residents’ groups, and that is why it plays a very important role. It has representatives from the Netley Residents Association and the Southern Lockleys Residents Association.

The consultative group meets on a quarterly basis. All elected members who have electorates—whether they be ward councillors, state members or federal members—affected by Adelaide Airport are invited. It is a very important consultative committee. It is important because it is a consultative committee where we turn up, we look at the issues—the things that affect the residents, the industry and Adelaide Airport—we discuss them and solutions are found and finalised.

Of interest to the consultative committee members have been issues such as the federally legislated curfew, allegations of breaches, the investigations into these allegations, and dispensations. This gives me the opportunity, while the former shadow minister for transport, the member for Batman, is here, to thank him for the input that he had into the curfew bill a few years ago. He was able to negotiate an amendment that ensured that dispensations were signed off individually by the transport minister, and I thank him for that. He played a big role in it; he came to Adelaide and spoke to the residents groups that I have just mentioned. Their requests were put in the form of an opposition amendment to that bill, and today they are enshrined in legislation.

These are some of the things we deal with. These interests are matters which Adelaide Airport Ltd is not responsible for, both in practical terms and that which may relate to federal policy. AAL is neither able nor authorised to address such concerns because there are government bodies that address those concerns.

To fulfil this ministerial direction and maintain a consultative committee, it is only natural that representatives of the agency or departments that are responsible for highly relevant elements of greater airport function, including those matters specifically dictated by legislation, be available to address concerns and inform members of this consultative committee. I understand that a representative of the Department of Transport and Regional Services contributes to meetings at the Sydney airport regarding their noise insulation programs, but DOTARS does not attend an Adelaide Airport Consultative Committee meeting. I would like to know why not. Are the residents of Sydney more important than the residents in Adelaide who are affected by aircraft noise? A curfew applies in Sydney, as it does in Adelaide, concerns regarding which can be answered or pursued by DOTARS representatives in attendance in Sydney but not in Adelaide. Again I ask: why not?

Are government ministers prepared to direct airport management to engage with the community, only to ignore all parties to the forum and starve them of information concerning the very matters they exist to address? How can a ministerially directed meeting concerning alleged, proven or permitted breaches of the curfew take place when the parties responsible for the curfew—the government, the ministers, DOTARS—do not even provide timely and intelligible information regarding its operation? At meeting after meeting we turn up and the reports are not there from the department.

This information has been requested again and again by the consultative committee but to no avail up to this point. I have tried to advance the interests of the committee members in this place on many occasions. We have a terrific local community based resident organisation that takes these issues of the airport, the flight paths, the curfew and insulation very seriously. As I said, it is represented on this consultative committee. So I ask that the current minister instruct DOTARS to provide information in a timely manner and in a comprehensible form for distribution to committee members and that the department make available a member of its staff to attend committee meetings and help members, including AAL, comply with the former minister’s direction.

The Adelaide Airport Consultative Committee plays a very important role in dealing with issues. We try to work through issues together with the residents and the airport. The minister should give the committee the respect it deserves by ensuring that reports from DOTARS and other government agencies arrive on time for us to peruse and to ensure that we deal with them.