(06-25-2015, 06:38 AM)thorn bird Wrote: Well people.
Pretty much as expected.
Frantic activity on the southern side of Bankstown.
Men in protective gear digging up offending asbestos and loading up trucks to be driven who knows where.
Sanitization in progress?? but of course all that asbestos dust blowing nicely across Milperra road.
On ABC news yesterday, Labor's new Policy is to shut Bankstown and turn it into an industrial park.
Pretty much as predicted.
Wonder how much the development sharks paid for that little "Policy"?
Most disturbing news Thorny, even if somewhat expected - how do you think NSW Labor intend to get around the Airports Act, with that little shady deal?? Anyway TB when you find out more give us a link hey??
In mentioning the Airports Act I see the Badgery's amendment passed through the Senate yesterday - see here - & Senators Xenophon & Fawcett made contributions to the debate:
Quote from NX speech:
Quote:"..Back in 2002 it was thought to be a high price but, 13 years on, it is clear that Macquarie Bank got Australia's largest and oldest airport for a bargain. But it has gained a reputation for providing overpriced low levels of service, as a private monopoly, for those who have to use the airport. Sydney Airport Corporation pretty much charged what it liked for its services, including to the airlines and the travelling public, via landing and car-parking fees. Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, you know—through chairing regional and rural affairs and transport committee inquiries—that landing fees for Qantas, for Australian airlines, are exponentially higher than they are for comparable overseas airports. It is a rip-off..."
& in conclusion...
"..It has not been that long since the privatisation—just 13 years. In that time Sydney Airport has had three CEOs, but its first, Max Moore-Wilton, is now the chair of Sydney Airport Holdings, which owns 84 per cent of Sydney Airport. He has come a long way since those days, before the privatisation, when he was secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. He left to take up the helm of Sydney Airport Corporation just months later. He now has the unprecedented opportunity to create a privately owned multisite airport monopoly in Sydney.
Sydney Airport might not be the only private company that charges like a wounded bull and structures itself to pay as little tax as possible, but it is Australian and was created by our federal government. The privatisation of Sydney Airport has been a disaster, and that disaster is set to continue if Sydney Airport Corporation decides to take up its option to develop and operate Sydney's second airport. We will rue the day, if that happens..."
However for mine the speech that was more of interest was that from Senator Fawcett as we all know that he & Heffernan are strongly aligned on airport development matters, especially in regards to Secondary Airports.
Quotes from Senator Fawcett speech:
Quote:"...Unfortunately, I cannot say I am quite so supportive of our secondary airports, the likes of Bankstown and Archerfield and others around the country. As recently as last weekend, when I was up at Port Augusta speaking with the manager of the unincorporated lands, I was very aware of the fact that airfields owned by local government and particularly those that serve remote communities are constantly under pressure to maintain the airfields to be capable of taking the Royal Flying Doctor Service, mail services and other services they critically need.
There are a couple of aspects to privatisation. Those in secondary and remote areas I am not such a great fan of; we still need to find ways to invest in those and make them viable for the future. With our primary airports privatisation certainly has transformed Australia, particularly when you look at the role of the airports as a hub not only for passenger movements but also for freight. This week I met with people at the Sydney Airport to talk about the Western Sydney airport and understand what their plans are for servicing regional communities and having that connection with international flights. I certainly compare it with South Australia with the advent of international flights—for example, going direct from Adelaide Airport to Asia and places like Hong Kong and therefore China. There is the export industry—for example, our prawn industry, which does not have the volumes to justify a freight aircraft all by itself—and there are other industries in a similar case. Once you have a passenger service, it means that you have the ability to get freight onto an aircraft and into a market and it opens up new markets around the world, but the important part is to have that link...
...I give credit to the former government for their aviation green paper and the white paper and the NASAG process that came out of that, which is the safeguarding of our airports process. It is the whole idea of trying to get co-operation between the federal government, state governments and local governments around planning permissions to safeguard airports. I am a little disappointed that it seems to have plateaued and the hard work of taking the policy concept and implementing it appears to have stalled. That may not all be the federal government's fault. It takes cooperation from states and local governments as well to make those things happen. We are seeing a lot of discussion with the Federation white paper and the COAG processes. I think both sides of politics suffer the frustration of our three levels of government and sometimes not being able to drive very good common sense ideas through.
But can I say that NASAG and the process of protecting our airports and the airspace that goes with them are things that we do need in the national interest to get some alignment between the federal government, of whichever political persuasion, and the state and local governments. Why? Because it is important to our economy and it is important to lots of social functions—things like banking, mail services and medical services. Where we do not protect airports and the airspace, we will see a degradation in the ability of the aviation industry to service Australia in the manner in which we have become accustomed. The reason it is important for this process to be in place is that I frequently come across people at both local and state government levels who are interested in developing their communities, and I fully understand and appreciate that. Whether it is housing close to airports or large high-rise buildings in a capital city that infringe into the airspace,—the PANS-OPS criteria—those things have a direct impact on the viability of airlines to carry the kind of loads they look at.
In South Australia, for example, there was a great deal of contention a year or so back when people looked at the height of the city buildings and complained about what they called the archaic regulations that stopped us having even higher buildings. There was quite some discussion in the media about that and a bit of a head of steam developing in that these were really archaic rules, we should change them and we should have higher buildings. People did not realise that the height limits were actually related to operations out of the airport. If you were taking off from Adelaide Airport on the north-easterly runway and were flying on a cloudy day with a low-cloud base or by night and you had an engine failure in a large transport aircraft with passengers or cargo, then the airspace has to allow for the worst-case in terms of your performance and your climb configuration for you to control the emergency and then return the aircraft to the airfield. If you build higher buildings, then the aircraft has to be able to out-climb the worst-case, which is an intersection with that building. This means that the operators are constrained to carrying less fuel, which means that they go a shorter distance, or they have to off-load passengers or cargo. Eventually, you start constraining the operations to the point where airlines are not prepared to actually service that centre.
The long-term planning that NASAG envisaged is something that is really important for us to get into place. We have seen some benefits with Western Sydney in how the site was originally identified as early as 1969. As a result, the Australian government acquired a site of approximately 1,700 acres over the next decade or so. Land that has been reserved is now having very tangible inputs. For example, around noise and curfew, the fact that those long-term planning restrictions have been associated with that land has largely protected it from incompatible residential development. That means that the typical noise footprint for aircraft does not affect the same number of people it would if unencumbered building had been allowed in those areas. It is going to affect only around 3,900 residents, whereas a similar noise footprint at Kingsford Smith affects nearly 130,000 residents.
Technology for aircraft is getting better, particularly with precision vertical navigation options. Australia is now one of the greatest users, particularly at Kingsford Smith airport. That and new generation aircraft with high-bypass ratio engines, with a low-noise signature, means that we can get higher volumes of traffic into airports. The point I am trying to make here is that long-term planning that allowed us to set aside that land is now going to have a very tangible benefit. That means Western Sydney Airport will be capable of having 24-hour operations. It will not necessarily have to have a curfew. The planning, combined with advancing technology, gives great capability which will benefit our economy and the number of jobs that can grow at Western Sydney Airport.
As we look at these kinds of developments and the threats enveloping other airports—and in your own state, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, you would have seen media recently about Perth Airport and concerns about residential development—there are great concerns around incompatible development. Certainly, there are great concerns as I look at places like Archerfield, Bankstown and Jandakot in Western Australia. I just want to lay out, again, for both sides of politics that, for all levels of government, whether we do it through the Reform of the federation white paper or through the COAG process, we need to get on top of the NASAG concepts. I would argue that we even need to extend it to include what the Queensland government has, which are areas set aside in the approach and take-off paths of runway which allow for the fact that many secondary airports service single-engine aircraft with trainees. There is a danger that, if you have a failure, then, obviously, aircraft can come down in the area. Queensland has done a very good job of quarantining, if you like, a splay at the end of a runway. That is something we should be looking at more on a national basis.
So it is an important process, and I would certainly encourage state and local government associations to look at how they can work constructively with the federal government and realise that this is not just about a loss of rates they may suffer if they cannot build a particular subdivision of housing right next to an airport. If they look at the broader impact, the direct jobs associated with an airport and, also, what the airport enables in terms of tourism, in terms of business travel and, particularly, in terms of export for so many of our small- to medium-sized businesses, the economic impact on the state of having a reduced capability in that airport would be extreme. We really do need to take a long-term view around the issues of airport planning..."
For those of you who prefer pictures here is most of the Fawcett speech...
MTF...P2
