Canberra Airport master plan, mixed bag with no real industry support

In November 2008, the Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese rejected Canberra International Airport’s draft master plan on the grounds that it did not provide enough detail on the proposal to develop the airport into a freight hub and the airport’s community consultation had been insufficient. The Minister was quoted at the time as saying “The public have the right to know how this development could impact on their homes and the airport’s response to these concerns has been inadequate.” As a result of the rejection of the original master plan the Airport has had 180 days to resubmit their revised proposal.

The consultation process closed on 8 May 2009 and Canberra Airport have now published submissions where consent for publication has been granted (2009 Preliminary Draft Master Plan submissions) – submissions are listed below as they appeared on 04 June 2009:

Looking through these submissions it appears clear that there are clear raft of objections to the 24/7 freight operations, in favour of an 11pm to 6am curfew of the basis of noise impact.

What is exceedingly surprising is the total lack of any significant contributions and support from freight forwarding companies and international airlines. Given the emphasis that the airport has put on 24/7 freight operations and Canberra Airport becoming a “second Sydney Airport” one wonders where the support really is for these proposals?

The only submission from a “heavyweight” industry player appears to be from Qantas, nothing from any other national or international freight forwarding or passenger airline companies. One would have thought that if these operations were so important and of relevance to the aeronautical and related industries, these players would have rallied to support the Canberra Airport proposal – instead there is barely a whimper with most of the “support” coming from small Canberra based businesses. If submissions by the major freight and aeronautical players have not been authorised for publication the question should be asked what do these organisations have to hide?

Similarly the question remains as to why there is no ACT Government submission (or if there was one, why the ACT Government has not authorised publication). Again should we be asking what the ACT Government has to hide, surely their submission would proudly reflect the needs, desires and requirements of the Territory and its constituents.

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Note: This article is reproduced with permission of the author from the original article that appeared on the Typeboard website. Typeboard a Canberra based social citizen media website where the community creates and makes headlines by posting their articles, news, reports, journals, reviews, critics, ideas, tips and stories by the people and from the people.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the opinion of the committee, or members of the North Canberra Community Council Inc.