Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Airports Amendment Bill 2010 makes a number of amendments to the Airports Act 1996, which establishes a framework for the regulation of Commonwealth leased airports. The act sets out the requirements for airport master plans, which set out development plans over a 20-year period and which are updated every five years or earlier. Master plans are intended to establish the overall direction of the development of an airport site. The planning process reduces the potential for conflicts with surrounding communities, allows for the public to be informed of the developments at the airport and enables them to be consulted on these developments. A key question might be asked lately about the approval of the development of the subdivision under the Canberra Airport, which one might presume will have far greater traffic in future. The Airports Act also requires major development plans to be prepared for specific development proposals. Both master plans and major development proposals require a period of public consultation, after which the plan is submitted for ministerial approval.

The bill will increase requirements for airport master plans and major development plans to align more closely with the state and local planning laws. It will require that master plans include a ground transport plan illustrating how airport developments will impact the surrounding transport network and include analysis on how the master plan aligns with state and local planning laws. Master plans will be required to integrate the airport environment strategy rather than having it separate to the master plan. In addition, some types of developments that are deemed incompatible with the operation of airport sites as an airport will be prohibited. The bill will also restructure the triggers for the preparation of major development plans to include developments with significant community impact, thus enabling public consultation for all airport developments that impact surrounding areas.

The bill will seek to streamline certain development applications. If a development has little community impact there is currently no provision for airports to seek an exemption from the major development plan process. The bill will introduce such an exemption. The bill will also allow airports to seek a reduction in the public consultation period from 60 days to 15 days in the event that a major development plan is aligned with the latest master plan and therefore has already been subjected to public scrutiny.

The opposition acknowledges that getting the balance between aviation infrastructure development and broader community planning and consultation is never easy. That is why the coalition introduced the Airports Act in 1996. So, in one respect, the Airports Amendment Bill 2010 continues the reformist work of the former coalition government. Unfortunately, as is so typical of this government, it has once again proved unable or unwilling to provide even the basic courtesy level of consultation with key stakeholders when it comes to drafting this bill. Fortunately, on 30 September 2010, the bill was referred to the Senate Rural Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 16 November 2010. While I acknowledge that the government did not oppose this referral, its contempt for consultation and review was made clear by the government’s refusal to accept a perfectly reasonable coalition amendment.

Today, one might call into clear focus the same government’s refusal to be part of a process of getting proper oversight of their NBN Telstra legislation by the Productivity Commission. One also might draw into clear context the fact that the Labor government, ably assisted by the Greens and the Independents, have decided to go down the path of their process even though such a person as Mr Glenn Stevens, the head of the Reserve Bank, has clearly stated today that the NBN should not go forward without it going to the Productivity Commission first. Once more, it is a case of every person telling them something but them ignoring it and unfortunately other people believing them on the way through.

Going back to this airport bill, this rejection is all the more remarkable since the government, when preparing this bill, refused to provide an exposure draft. This is extraordinary. Airports are a vital part of Australia’s infrastructure and their interaction with the broader community is enormous. Unfortunately, because the government is in such a rush and is not interested in consultation, this bill has problems. These problems have aroused concerns from a number of aviation industry stakeholders. Fortunately, the Senate inquiry identified these problems and, in a unanimous conclusion, recommended:

… that the Department of Infrastructure and Transport develop guidelines in consultation with key stakeholders to clarify the level of detail and analysis to be included in airport master plans in order to satisfy the requirements set out in paragraph 71(2)(h) and 71(3)(h) of the Airports Amendment Bill 2010.

We call upon the government to develop these guidelines swiftly in order to clarify the doubts about these elements of the Airports Amendment Bill 2010. We also call upon the government to table these guidelines on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments as per the recommendation made by the coalition senators in the Senate inquiry into the bill. We further note that, as a result of sloppy drafting and lack of consultation, the government has had to make further amendments to this bill. The coalition welcomes the government’s belated changes to this bill and the coalition will not oppose passage of the Airports Amendment Bill 2010 and the associated amendments.

In closing, this is yet another statement, as has been so clearly betrayed today, of a government that is unwilling to properly engage, a government that is hopeless with the details, a government that is clueless about the facts and a government that ignores all the key stakeholders, even the independent stakeholders outside the partisan arrangements of this chamber such as the head of the Reserve Bank, Mr Glenn Stevens, with his comments about whether the NBN should go to the Productivity Commission. This is a government that tries to laud itself on what it gets through rather than what it actually delivers an outcome for. We see Mr Albanese stand up in the other place and come up with that list—more a list to explain other things that should be cleaned up rather than things that have actually been achieved. Everything this government touches turns to clay.

The only way we can save the Australian people from some of the ridiculous decisions that come out of this place is with proper oversight by this parliament. Yet this government, ably assisted by the Greens and, to be honest, by the Independents, has gagged that process. We see that in minor ways, such as with the Airports Amendment Bill, but today we saw it in the most major of ways when we tried to get the Australian people the right to a proper analysis of their major infrastructure project. This government, and those who are associated with this government, especially the Greens, must accept responsibility for the decisions that they take. When those decisions come unstuck, when the money is gone and when people stand around and say, ‘Where are these social benefits that we had in the past and that we used to pay for out of taxpayers’ dollars, and where is our capacity to properly fund the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, to properly fund defence and to properly fund education?’—when they ask where on earth that money has gone—we will be able to point to days like today when this government in association with the Greens, this Labor-Green government, refused proper oversight and to that lack of proper oversight as the reason we ended up finding ourselves in such an invidious position.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be brief. Airports Amendment Bill 2010 relates to airport land and I have raised a concern with the minister’s office and with the department on the issue of gambling premises on airport land. I have asked whether state regulations apply, as a matter of course, both to the approval process for putting a poker machine venue on airport land and to the rules and regulations applying to problem gambling. I have had a useful discussion with both the department and the minister’s office on this and I understand the minister may be making an undertaking or confirming that there will be further review of this issue.

It is an issue that I think has been raised at a ministerial council level, but it would have been remiss of me not to have raised this issue to ensure that if a gambling venue is on airport land there ought to be, at the very least, the same rules that apply to venues on non-Commonwealth land in terms of both the approval process for such a venue and the regulation of those premises. My first preference is that there not be any more poker machine venues established on airport land or any further proliferation of gambling venues. That is where I am at on this bill and I would be grateful if I could hear from the minister on this issue following my discussions with Minister Albanese’s office and the department.

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Airports Amendment Bill 2010, which establishes a comprehensive framework for the regulation of Commonwealth owned airports leased to the private sector over the next 50 years. I note in particular the provisions of the bill designed to improve the planning and regulatory framework, drawing on the lessons of the past 14 years, and amendments on matters relating to the first five years of the master plan requiring additional information—for example, a ground transport plan. I also note amendments that clarify provisions in the existing legislation and framework which may be somewhat ambiguous.

Those sorts of provisions are not dissimilar to the sorts of provisions that could be developed by the government in the rollout of the National Broadband Network. The airports—the subject of this bill—would be very pleased to hear that there may be some scrutiny of the National Broadband Network, given that presumably they are enjoying or wish to enjoy some sort of broadband access. They may be wondering at what point some of their passengers are going to arrive today, given that it is largely the debate about the National Broadband Network legislation that has affected the departure times proposed by some of the passengers coming to those airports.

Given the links between this legislation and the National Broadband Network—in particular, the provisions of this bill that seek to clarify ambiguity—there remains ambiguity about issues dealt with, in part, by this chamber in respect of the National Broadband Network. Over the last couple of days we have heard about Senator Xenophon’s agreement with the government which, in part, was to do with securing the vote of the Independents for the passage of the legislation. We have also learnt that the strength of that agreement rests in a letter from the Prime Minister, dated 23 November. Senator Xenophon has already told the chamber that the date might be out a day, but we know the letter we are talking about.

It is also very clear that despite what seems to be the Prime Minister’s promise to Senator Xenophon that the NBN will be subject to scrutiny and be transparent by virtue of the creation of a joint parliamentary committee to inquire into the National Broadband Network, it is very clear that the strength of that committee is nothing more than the subject of a paragraph in a letter from the Prime Minister to Senator Xenophon. So what we know about that committee rests purely and simply in the letter from the Prime Minister. There is nothing from the House: no motions and no resolutions for this place to consider. There is nothing thus far that has kept the Prime Minister’s word to set up that committee.

But what we do know about the committee, if we go on the say-so of the Prime Minister’s letter, are four things. Firstly, it will comprise mainly government members. Secondly, the committee will determine the terms of reference of the matters into which the committee will inquire. Thirdly, the committee will not start its work until 1 July next year, which is some eight months hence, by which time the rollout in Tasmania will have done much work and there will have been the rollout in mainland Australia. Finally, we also know that the Prime Minister is proposing that the committee be able to call witnesses, including members of parliament, about the performance of the NBN ‘or other matters of local interest’. So, taking this committee purely on face value from the Prime Minister’s letter, because that is all we have, it is very clear it is going to be a government dominated committee looking into matters that the government is happy to have looked into in the National Broadband Network. In short, it will become a politician’s playpen and a parade ground for government members peddling the government’s NBN propaganda.

So what should we do about this? I would have had it that this chamber be able to consider a motion to establish a Senate committee inquiry into the National Broadband Network to dovetail with the joint parliamentary committee, were it to be established as the Prime Minister forecasts. I would also have had the Senate consider the motion that includes the terms of reference, which I would have been hopeful that the Greens, Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding would have seen fit to support. Indeed, I would have been hopeful particularly of the Greens, given that the terms of reference in that motion had been on the Notice Paper for some days in the joint names of me and Senator Ludlam. He was at that stage happy for those matters to be the subject of the terms of reference. I also would have been hopeful of the support of the Independents for the motion at large, because I do believe that they want the National Broadband Network scrutinised from now until its completion.

However, given in particular the shortcomings in the sop, effectively, of the joint parliamentary committee offered to Senator Xenophon by the Prime Minister, I am left to wonder about indications that may have been given by Minister Wong in the background during the course of discussions in the ether of this wonderful chamber as it considered the national broadband legislation just gone. I am left to wonder whether certain indications may have been given by Minister Wong to the Greens, to Senator Xenophon and to Senator Fielding, given the publicity recently about, in my view, the spectacular shortcomings of the proposed joint committee—it will be stacked, it will tell the story the government wants to be told, it will not start work until July next year and it will just be a government propaganda machine. Given those shortcomings, I wonder whether Minister Wong may have made some overtures to the Independents in this place to attempt to backfill the gaps in the proposed joint parliamentary committee which have been identified in the very important debate that this Senate has had some time to have about the National Broadband Network and related legislation.

I do wonder whether Minister Wong has given some indications, for example, about the composition of the joint parliamentary committee and about it being more evenly balanced between, say, government and opposition members. I do wonder whether Minister Wong may have given some indications to the crossbenchers in this place about that committee being set up to start its inquiry as of February next year and I do wonder whether Minister Wong may have given some indications to the crossbenchers about the ability or otherwise for members of parliament to parade their wares in front of that committee, when, really, who wants another speaking opportunity for politicians? I reckon the Australian people would reckon we get plenty in any event. I speculate that there might have been overtures in that regard.

Given that we are led to believe that the support of the Independents, and in particular Senator Xenophon, rested in very large part on the offerings of the government made to the crossbenchers in the last few days, it is incumbent on the Australian people and I think this place to attempt to extract from the government on the record what, if any, overtures may have been made to backfill the glaring gaps that exist in the Prime Minister’s indications to Senator Xenophon about the establishment of a joint parliamentary committee. Before we go to these airports, which are subject to this bill, and before catching planes tonight, I would respectfully suggest it is incumbent upon Minister Wong to put on the record any indications to the crossbenchers she has made. All Senator Xenophon had to hang on to—I bet his was not yellow—in the last 48 hours was a letter from the Prime Minister, from which there now may well be some departure—

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. I rarely do this and generally only during question time, but I think that in this instance I should point out, on a matter of relevance, that Senator Fisher has been talking at some length about matters other than those even close to the Airports Amendment Bill 2010. I did not hear the word ‘airports’ or something akin airports being mentioned in the last 10 minutes. I stand to be corrected. From a different perspective: people will want to contribute to a range of bills that are listed as noncontroversial. I seek the cooperation of the chamber to ensure that everybody gets an opportunity to be heard.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, on the point of order: Senator Fisher clearly mentioned airports a number of times. It was about government accountability in the airports bill. Senator Fisher was merely talking about the accountability of the government in this bill and on the other matter she was raising. In relation to Senator Ludwig’s last comment, which had nothing to do with his point of order but which you allowed, I simply say that Senator Ludwig had an opportunity to extend the time for debate on these bills, which he twice refused—

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, you are now engaging in debate and you are committing the same offence you accuse Senator Ludwig of committing. Come back to your point of order, Senator Macdonald.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly, but you allowed him. I am sure that, in fairness, you would allow me the same indulgence—

The Acting Deputy President:

Address the point of order, Senator Macdonald.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have addressed the point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order: I imagine the regular retort to this would be: you have 10 minutes left to become relevant.

The Acting Deputy President:

The minister has raised a point of order. As we are all aware, I am unable to direct how you should make your contribution. I do direct your attention to the fact that it is the Airports Amendment Bill.

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given that this bill does two very important things—improving the planning and regulatory framework for airports, drawing on the lessons of the last 14 years, and seeking to clarify ambiguous provisions—it is incumbent on the government, in the context of the National Broadband Network, and particularly incumbent on Minister Wong, to clarify the ambiguity that may exist in any discrepancy between the Prime Minister’s letter to Senator Xenophon recording her sop to the Independents for their vote and anything that Minister Wong may have given by way of indications or overtures to the Independents. These indications would have been given to the Independnts prior to what might otherwise have been their consideration of a motion that I would have sought to put to make the National Broadband Network subject to the scrutiny of a Senate committee and subject to the sort of scrutiny that this bill proposes for the regulatory framework of Commonwealth owned airports leased to the private sector. I look forward to at some stage in the near future trafficking through a few airports and hopefully ensuring, by way of scrutiny, that the broadband network is up to date.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Travelling, not trafficking!

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Trafficking myself. Oh, that gets worse, doesn’t it! Merry Christmas, everybody. Here we go, NBN bro.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a longstanding interest in transport matters and have represented the minister and shadow ministers in this chamber on a number of occasions. I also travel through a lot of airports. I do want to say some words on the bill but, before I do that, I want to comment on some of the things that Senator Fisher was saying in relation to government accountability. I am very concerned about the way the government handled the NBN bill and, therefore, I am concerned about how they will handle the Airports Amendment Bill 2010. Senator Fisher rightly raised the issue that, in spite of previous arrangements made with the crossbenchers and the Greens, those senators did not vote to support Senator Fisher’s motion on a committee to be set up to start looking at the NBN process now.

The reason why the crossbench senators did not support it was that they had an undertaking from Prime Minister Gillard. You need go no further than Mr Kevin Rudd to work out the veracity and usefulness of promises given by Ms Gillard—and I say no more on that particular point. A deal was clearly made. I did not overhear it. I have not heard it directly but Senator Wong approached Senator Ludlam, Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding. They huddled and then she went away and wrote something on her iPad. This, to all intents and purposes, apparently enabled those senators to vote against Senator Fisher’s motion to set up a new committee to give scrutiny to the NBN process.

My question to the government and to Senator Wong, which I tried to raise at the time, is that, if this undertaking is given to three senators, why can’t they make it open and accountable to all senators? That Senator Wong would not get up in the chamber and repeat that same offer leads me to think that she does not intend to keep the arrangements that she has made with those three senators, which influenced their vote. During the debate, I heard Senator Xenophon ask the minister at the table, ‘Is it true that the government’s joint committee on the NBN will have complementary members who will have the same rights as participating members on Senate committees?’ I did not hear the minister at the table give a response to that, yet Senator Xenophon is clearly working on the undertaking given by the Prime Minister that the minister in this chamber will not put on the record. Senator Wong, when invited to do that this afternoon, refused in the same manner to get up and say what the deal was. That, to me, is a matter which requires further scrutiny. I think it is a matter for privileges, and I will be exploring that matter. That is all, as I say, relative to government administration and whether their undertakings can be accepted.

I did briefly want to comment on the Airports Amendment Bill 2010 and planning. There has been a lot concern raised at times with all of us about activities that occur at airports. Senator Xenophon has quite rightly raised the issue of gambling—not that I agree or disagree with him on that. But we have seen things happening at airports which sometimes people do query. I have been very concerned by the length of time it has taken to complete activities at both Cairns airport, up in Far North Queensland, and Canberra airport—two airports which I use regularly—and I wonder what there is in the planning arrangements in this bill to consider the interests of the travelling public at those airports. For a long period of time there have been difficulties for members of the public at those airports.

I relate the incident where I was knocked out by a boom gate at Cairns airport some time ago because of the very strange arrangements there. Fortuitously, that airport is almost at the end of what seems to have been a 100-year construction period although I think it has only been two or three years. But it does seem to me that someone, in planning airports, needs to take into account a little better how the regular activities of an airport, which are planes landing and taking off and passengers getting in and getting out, should occur during these very significant construction stages. With that and with the reservations that Senator Joyce mentioned, I support the Airports Amendment Bill.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government is committed to supporting sustainable growth in aviation underpinned by meaningful engagement and consultation with the community and industry stakeholders. The Airports Amendment Bill 2010 is a priority for the government. It brings into effect a program of reforms to planning at and around our airports, reforms that we first outlined in the aviation white paper, Flight path to the future, which was released in December last year. This bill is about getting the balance right between ongoing investment in aviation infrastructure, community consultation and the integration of airport planning with local, state and territory planning regimes. I note that Senator Xenophon has raised concerns about the use of airport land in relation to gambling. The government has undertaken to ensure that ongoing reforms to strengthen or reform gambling laws will include consideration of airport land as well. We will come back to that in due course. I table a correction to the explanatory memorandum relating to the Airports Amendment Bill 2010. I thank senators for their contributions in relation to the bill. With that I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.