Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to comment on the Perth Airport Preliminary Draft Master Plan 2014. I stress that it is the preliminary draft. All master plans are important for the airport communities, but this document is particularly significant for the people of Perth and the constituents in my electorate of Swan. This 2014 plan includes for the first time a proposal for a new runway development at Perth Airport. It also includes a runway extension plan for the cross-runway.

Airport master plans are 20-year planning documents that are completed every five years. The last master plan, in 2009, did not consider a need for a third runway at Perth Airport. In relation to the three runway options, the extensions to runways 06/24 and 03L/21R to the north and to the north-east and the new parallel runway, the 2009 master plan actually stated: 'It is considered unlikely that any of the runway developments will be required during the 20-year planning period for this master plan 2009.' The statement on page 19 of the 2014 preliminary draft master plan, 'Perth Airport needs to proceed to construct a new runway during the balance of this decade', represents a significant alteration in plans over the last five years, as does the contemplation of a cross-runway extension within the master plan period. I have been crusading and fighting about noise amelioration and aircraft noise for the last seven years, as did the two previous members for Swan. The airport is based in Swan and it is something that affects a lot of our constituents and businesses. It also affects the electorates of Hasluck, Pearce and Tangney.

Crucially, as far as I am concerned, a clear precedent exists for circumstances where new runway construction or runway extension is undertaken at capital city airports in Australia. This precedent has been demonstrated twice in recent years. After Sydney's third runway was opened in 1994, the federal government agreed to compensate affected residents through the voluntary provision of sound insulation for homes between 30 and 40 ANEF. Following Adelaide Airport's runway extension, which was opened by the Hon. John Howard in 1998, a similar noise insulation scheme titled the Adelaide Airport noise insulation program, came into force on 19 May 2000. This involved the expenditure of $63.7 million over four years. It is worth noting that one public building was determined as eligible for that scheme in 2013 and was included in the 2013-14 budget. I also note that it was in the member for Hindmarsh's electorate and that might have been a reason why it was included in the 2013-14 budget. Both schemes were run in broadly the same way. A passenger levy was applied and the proceeds were transferred to Airservices Australia, which administered the fund over an extended period of time. Both schemes were legislated for at the federal level with the Aircraft Noise Levy Collection Act 1995, the Aircraft Noise Levy Act 1995 and the Aircraft Noise Levy Collection Amendment Bill 2001 legislated under subsequent governments.

It is my view that with the new runway development and cross-runway extension in the master plan, there is now a clear precedent for a noise insulation scheme to be introduced to accompany these changes with the construction of a new runway. Perth Airport is indicating that it will be seeking to introduce a levy to pay for the construction of the new runway and a mechanism will be in place to run this scheme to pay for the construction. The mechanism is also there to introduce a scheme to pay for a noise amelioration.

Today I renew my call for an airport noise insulation scheme for Perth. It is my view that any noise insulation scheme should be based on a number above system and not on an ANEF system, which is a forecast not a measurement.

The passage on page 23 of the preliminary draft master plan states:

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has been driving significant reform of aircraft noise metrics and options to keep the community informed of noise impacts. The basis of the new noise metrics has been to map the impact of noise in relation to single events which exceed certain thresholds determined to be sufficient to interrupt a normal conversation, which is assumed to occur at 65 decibels (dB). Known as an N65 contour map, this is represented in any events map that shows how many times on an average day that 65dB(A) is exceed relative to a location.

There appears to be a consensus around the 20xN70, the 50xN65 and the 100xN60 system. The sooner we start the process to move away from ANEF, the better. I call for the noise insulation for Perth to be based on this approach.