On Thursday 21 November 2024, I delivered a speech in Federal Parliament about Labor's Sydney Airport Demand Management Amendment Bill 2024. You can watch the full speech here or read the transcript below.
Transcript:
I move:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"the House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Sydney Airport Demand Management Act 1997 imposes a 11pm to 6am curfew and 80 per hour movement cap at Sydney Airport, protecting the inner Sydney community from the worst effects of aircraft noise; and
(b) other airports around Australia, including Brisbane, Melbourne, and the soon-to-be-opened Western Sydney International Airport are not subject to an equivalent regime; and
(2) calls on the government to consider whether an equivalent movement cap and curfew scheme should be applied to other airports in Australia, including Brisbane Airport"
For nearly three decades, Sydney residents have enjoyed the protection of a flight movement cap of 80 per hour and a curfew from 11 pm to 6 am. Obviously, this isn't a perfect solution, as inner Sydney residents are still subject to substantial aircraft noise, but the curfew provides important protection against the worst health effect of aircraft noise, which is disturbed sleep, and the movement cap provides certainty about the maximum levels that are possible during the day.
While the Sydney Airport Demand Management Amendment Bill 2024 makes slight changes to the movement cap in certain circumstances, the Greens are actually pleased to see that calls from the aviation industry to substantially weaken the movement cap and the curfew have been resisted. The real question, then, is: when the government is taking such care to preserve the substance of the movement cap in Sydney, why are they so resistant to new movement caps at other airports around the country? Western Sydney international airport is due to open in 2026 with no curfew and no movement cap. Western Sydney and Blue Mountains residents are being treated like second-class citizens compared to their inner-city Sydney neighbours.
The transport minister has recently approved a third runway at Melbourne Tullamarine airport. That airport has never had a curfew or a movement cap, and that's despite the lack of an overwater option like there is in Sydney and Brisbane. Indeed, aircraft noise is being dumped on the residents of western and inner Melbourne. We learned at the recent Senate inquiry hearing that the transport minister ignored an independent health assessment showing developmental delays of up to six months in children as a result of Melbourne's third runway. She ignored that study, sadly, instead relying on the one conducted by the airport itself—hardly independent, I would argue. Then we have Brisbane, where calls for a movement cap and a curfew have been strongly resisted by the government, the airlines and the Brisbane Airport Corporation. The botched community engagement prior to the opening of the second runway there misled people to believe that aircraft noise would decrease over the city. Instead, the exact opposite happened. And it's not just disturbed sleep; it's the long-term mental and physical health effects that come from increased levels of noise. These are not trivial; they are very well documented. Brisbane residents have a very simple ask: a movement cap and a curfew like Sydney's. I don't think that's too much to ask, but instead residents have been mocked and dismissed by politicians from both major parties, by the airport and by the aviation industry.
The Greens, backed by the community, have had some important wins on this, including establishing the Senate inquiry and the ministerial direction to make SODPROPS, which is the best operating mode at the airport for noise reduction, the preferred mode at all hours at Brisbane Airport. That's going to be coming in at the end of November. But these measures will only go so far, as Brisbane Airport is on track to double the number of flights by 2035. That means the SODPROPS mode can't be used as often, and it means more noise over people's homes, more disturbed sleep and more adverse health effects. Sydney gets this special treatment, which we argue should be universal across the country. Everyone deserves it. But elsewhere people's health is being sacrificed to the profits of the aviation industry. It's got to stop. The government must take implementation of movement caps and curfews at airports like Brisbane's seriously.
Labor and the previous Liberal-National government have effectively encouraged monopolies and duopolies in Australia by refusing to step in and hold big corporations to account. We've seen it with Coles and Woolworths and the big four banks, and now we're seeing it in aviation, sadly, where Qantas and Virgin are bullying the competition through a practice called slot hoarding, as the previous speaker mentioned. Slot allocation might seem like an abstract concept, but it impacts every traveller. Here's what it means: big airlines like Qantas book up far more flight slots than they need and then repeatedly cancel these flights. Frustrated passengers buy tickets for flights that these airlines know won't even leave the ground. Last year alone, the ACCC alleged Qantas cancelled 15,000 flights for this very reason. And, to make matters worse, the slot management organisation that oversees Sydney airport slot allocations is, again, as the previous speaker mentioned, majority owned by Qantas and Virgin—a complete conflict of interest. Qantas and Virgin shouldn't be selling themselves slots. It shouldn't be hard to rule out airlines holding a full or partial shareholding in the slot manager.
This is problematic for everyday Australians. New entrants like Rex and Bonza are shut out, unable to access the slots they need to establish viable routes, as the previous speaker mentioned, to those regions in particular. That means fewer choices and higher costs for Australians, especially in those regional areas. People pay more, often to find that the flights they booked may not even exist. Merely tinkering around the edges with slots reform will not fix the fundamental issues with the Australian aviation industry—that it's a highly concentrated, monopolised market that pursues corporate profit over the interests of communities, customers and workers.
This week we've seen just how eager airlines are to offer freebies to politicians who keep their interests safe. The perks flow both ways. The Liberal-National government's actions during the pandemic are a perfect example of this cosy relationship. Under the Morrison government, Qantas received a staggering $2.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies—money that, by the way, has never been repaid. While millions of Australians were doing it tough, Qantas got a free lifeline to the tune of billions of dollars of your tax money. How did Qantas repay that generosity? They fired 10,000 workers in the middle of a pandemic, including 1,700 illegally, as found by the High Court. This is a clear and shameful indictment of the state of our aviation sector and a reminder of successive governments' truly lame responses to corporate wrongdoing. To further rub salt in the wound, Qantas brought forward their losses from the pandemic and paid no income tax last financial year—zero—despite posting a record $2.47 billion profit. No income tax—it's completely rigged against us. Nurses, who are at their breaking point, stretched to their absolute limits, and who actually risked their lives during the pandemic, paid more income tax than Qantas and Virgin did. It's absolutely insulting. Australians have had enough of a system that rewards bad behaviour and gives massive handouts to corporations who need it the least. When politicians are getting all of these freebies, it's completely understandable for people to be questioning Qantas's relationship with the very same MPs and ministers that regulate them.
Ultimately, this bill represents more of the same: performative aviation industry reform with some piecemeal changes to a system that fundamentally undermines the real interests of our communities. The Greens will support the passage of this bill through the House, and we will reserve our position in the Senate.