Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to be able to contribute and sum up the debate in relation to the Airports Amendment Bill 2015. To continue on from the exceptionally eloquent speech of Senator Fawcett: this is a good-news story for the people of New South Wales and in particular for the people of Western Sydney. This is fantastic news for the people of Australia in terms of the overall benefit that this airport is ultimately going to offer.

It was on 15 April 2014 that finally the Abbott coalition government announced that the site for the Western Sydney new airport would be located at Badgerys Creek. As we have heard, this is an announcement that has been talked about for some time. In fact, I was not even born, amazingly, when a second airport for Sydney was first discussed. So to have, just over 12 months ago, the culmination of something that had been talked about for decades and decades finally come to fruition under the Abbott government is a fantastic thing for all Australians.

Of course, whilst this is a second airport for Sydney, it must be remembered that first and foremost this is an airport for the people of Western Sydney. But an airport at Western Sydney is going to bring benefits not just to the people of Western Sydney, not just to the people of New South Wales but to Australians as a whole. We know that a new airport at Badgerys Creek is going to be a major boost to the local economy. We know that it is going to create thousands of jobs during the construction phase, but also a pipeline of jobs once the airport becomes operational. This is a government that said, 'We want to be the government that builds the infrastructure to take Australia into the 21st century.' This is a government that said, 'If you give us the honour of electing us to office, we will create the jobs that are going to employ people today and going forward tomorrow. That is exactly what this proposed airport for the people of Western Sydney will do.

The Australian government is now working with the government of New South Wales to deliver the new infrastructure and to deliver jobs for the people of Western Sydney. We are looking at an employment boom of approximately 8,000 jobs that will be created as a result of the construction of the airport and the upgrades that are going to be occurring in relation to the roads that are being built. And of course then we have that flow-on benefit, those long-term jobs that are going to be created for Australians once the airport commences operation, flowing through right to the mid-2020s. We are only in 2015, and we are already talking about an employment boom of 8,000 jobs—quite literally taking us through into the future. As I said, and as we have heard from a number of our speakers, for many decades an airport was proposed, an airport was discussed, and finally, under the Abbott government, the work is now happening. It is certainly a project that the rest of the world will be watching.

Turning to the statistics in relation to the number of passenger trips, for example, 54 million passenger trips are forecast to go unmet at Kingsford Smith airport by 2060 unless another airport is built in Sydney. If we forgo those passenger trips, can you imagine the adverse consequences to our economy?—the loss of the tourism dollar, the loss of purchasing power, the loss of employment. Grabbing hold of those 54 million passenger trips is exactly what we want to do under this government, and that is why we are making the concrete decision to go ahead and build the Badgerys Creek airport.

In terms of the additional infrastructure that is going to be needed, this is a government that is going to ensure that it is a case of roads first and the airport second, because we want to ensure that the airport is a success right from the very start. What does that ultimately mean? It means that thousands of good jobs and better local roads will be delivered well before that first plane taxis down that runway. And what are we looking at in terms of that road infrastructure build? Fourteen intersections, eight kilometres of road and 10 kilometres of shared paths have already been built this year alone. That is absolutely amazing. The airport is going to create economic and employment benefits then be a catalyst for further growth. The analysis undertaken by Ernst & Young found that an airport at Badgerys Creek has the potential to generate 24.6 billion in direct expenditure by 2060. It also found that an airport at Badgerys Creek could potentially contribute a $23.9 billion increase in gross domestic product to the national economy. Again, we are talking about a project that is going to have a huge economic impact on our nation.

This project will be the single-largest job creator in Western Sydney. We are very proud of that as the Abbott government. We said that we wanted to create jobs for Australians. We said that we wanted to be the government that built the infrastructure today for everybody to use tomorrow. That is exactly what we are doing.

With the road infrastructure to date, significant progress has been made on the projects. This is included in the $3.6 billion Western Sydney Infrastructure Plan—$3.6 billion is being injected into Western Sydney by this government under this plan. As you know, the Prime Minister literally broke the ground on the Bringelly Road on 20 January 2015. We have also seen the commencement of construction on the Werrington Arterial Road in March 2015.

But we do not stop there. The Local Roads Package has also commenced, with $32.4 million being allocated across seven projects under round 1, and submissions for round 2 will be invited in mid-2015. Then we have construction on the Northern Road, which is expected to begin in late 2015, and construction on the new motorway connecting the M7 to the Northern Road motorway is expected to commence in 2019. So again, the benefits of this project are already being seen with the start of construction of road upgrades to support the new proposed airport.

As I have said, the new airport in Western Sydney is part of the coalition government's investment in the infrastructure for the 21st century, and it is going to generate thousands of jobs and provide a huge economic boost that is going to give us economic growth in Western Sydney. And then of course we have those flow-on effects. It will be a catalyst for investment—investments in education, science, research and aeronautical industries.

In their contributions, a number of the previous speakers referred to high-speed rail. I would like to make some comments in relation to high-speed rail. The Australian government continues to explore what role high-speed rail could play as part of Australia's long-term transport planning. There is no doubt Australia will need additional transport capacity in the future to meet our growing population's demands for travel. In planning to meet this demand—and this is where a number of our speakers failed to consider other forms of transport—we do need to consider all forms of transport modes, which include aviation, road, conventional rail and high-speed rail. We should not just limit ourselves to looking at high-speed rail, because what we need to do in our considerations is to determine the best approach for our unique conditions and then we need to optimise the benefits for our regions.

In terms of some costings that have been undertaken, the 2013 High Speed Rail Study Phase 2 found that it would cost approximately $114 billion to construct a line between Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane, with construction best staged over three decades and commencing with the Sydney to Canberra section in 2027.

The same study found that the cost of connecting Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne was approximately $50 billion. They are huge amounts of money that we are talking about here. Whilst I certainly appreciate that a high-speed rail is a priority for the Australian Greens in particular—and we have certainly heard from Senator Rice and Senator Rhiannon in that regard—it is not the subject of the bill that we are referring to and it does not replace the need for an airport in Western Sydney.

Western Sydney has a population of over two million people. That is almost the size of Brisbane. As the population continues to grow, we must provide the appropriate infrastructure a region of that size warrants. Currently, around 30 per cent of workers living in Western Sydney commute well outside their region to get to work. This has an economic as well as a personal and a family impact. Then we have a look at the projections. Where are we going? Projections indicate that, by 2041, a further one million people will live in Western Sydney; and, in the next 20 years, Western Sydney will account for two-thirds of Sydney's population growth but only one-third of jobs. So Western Sydney airport will be a catalyst for growth. It will be a catalyst for investment and it will be a catalyst for jobs in Western Sydney.

The Airports Amendment Bill 2015 is going to amend the Airports Act 1996 to provide for the creation of an airport plan for the proposed Western Sydney airport, recognising that the airport will be a greenfield development that requires a unique process. The Airports Act provides the framework to manage and operate Australia's federally leased airports like Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. The airport plan will authorise the initial development and specify the Australian government's requirements for the airport.

Importantly, the bill recognises that the environmental assessment process currently underway for the airport is a key part of the approvals process. The bill confers an approval function on the environment minister in relation to environmental matters. The bill will require the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development to incorporate into the airport plan any environmental conditions imposed by the Minister for the Environment following completion of the environmental impact statement.

Preparation of a new and robust environmental impact statement is underway, and the community will have an opportunity to have a say on the draft environmental impact statement later this year. Once the airport plan envisaged under this act is in place, no further planning or development approvals will be required prior to initial construction commencing

It will enable detailed design and construction planning to commence as soon as possible after contract signature.

The bill also includes measures that would help the government consider alternative operators, should Sydney Airport group turn down an offer to develop and operate the proposed airport. Under the 2002 sale agreement for Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport, the owners of Sydney airport have a right of first refusal to develop and operate a second major airport within 100 kilometres of Sydney's centre. If they decline to exercise the right, the Commonwealth is open to looking at other operators, or to developing the site itself, provided it is done on the same terms. However, the Airports Act currently effectively prevents the Commonwealth from taking either of these actions in the event that the Sydney Airport Group declines to accept the offer. Section 18 of the Airports Act requires that the airport lessee companies for Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport and any airport site declared to be 'Sydney West Airport', as it is referred to in the Airports Act, must be subsidiaries of the same company. This is a legacy provision from the Airports Act as originally passed in 1996.

The bill removes the requirement of common ownership, providing the Commonwealth with the commercial flexibility to deal with third parties, or to develop the airport itself if required. The bill also removes the airport cross-ownership restrictions currently placed on Sydney West Airport. These restrictions prevent cross-ownership of more than 15 per cent between Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth airports and a new airport at Badgerys Creek. The amendment will help maximise the success of any market offering in the event that Sydney Airport Group chooses not to exercise an option to develop and operate the airport. The bill also contain some mechanical provisions to facilitate declaration of the airport site and other preparatory work.

In closing, this is the culmination of decades and decades of discussion. What has been decades of discussion under the Abbott coalition government has finally come to a decision. That decision was announced on 15 April 2014, when we said that the site for Western Sydney's new airport would be at Badgerys Creek. We said that if we were elected to govern, we wanted to be the government that built the infrastructure for tomorrow. We wanted to be the government that takes Australia into the 21st century. We said that we wanted to be a government that creates jobs for Australians today but also ensures that those jobs flow on to become the jobs for Australians well into the future. And that is exactly what we are seeing with the Sydney West Airport. As I have said, we are looking at a multibillion dollar boost to our economy. On top of that, we are looking at the creation of approximately 8,000 jobs. That is an absolutely fantastic package of support for Australians. And these benefits are already being seen with the start of construction of road upgrades to support the new airport. But on top of that, this is going to be a catalyst, going forward, for investment in so many things—investment in education, investment in science and in research, and investment in aeronautical industries.

I have listened very carefully to the debate and I thank those on the opposition benches for their support for this bill. I certainly commend the bill to the Senate.