Page 1431 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 11 May 1994
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What is the likelihood that it will be turned into an international airport in the near future? I would say, without qualification, that while it remains the property of the Commonwealth it will not be. There are a number of reasons why I say that. There are a lot of vested interests that would prefer to see overseas passengers coming into Sydney and Melbourne, and not Canberra. While that is the case, I do not see the Commonwealth spending a lot of money to upgrade the Canberra Airport when, for the reasons that the Chief Minister put forward, some people see it as being unnecessary. We get, by somebody's definition, plenty of overseas visitors coming to Canberra now, the fact that they have to come here by road or by an inefficient rail system notwithstanding. The fact is that, if we had airliners coming directly into Canberra from overseas, the numbers would increase, in my view, dramatically. I think that is incontrovertible. But while the airport is owned by the Commonwealth, or operated by the Commonwealth, it simply will not happen, for many reasons.
We have open to us a window of opportunity with the FAC and the Government considering selling it. I would have thought that we would have jumped at it and grabbed it with both hands. There are many reasons why we would, and some of those have been put forward this afternoon; but there are complications. I support the Chief Minister when she says that we need to proceed with care, and we need to do our homework thoroughly, because there are questions of ownership. Perhaps, as Mr Westende said, we would be buying only the remainder of a 99-year lease on a very small part of the ground out there. That might be the case. On the other hand, if the Commonwealth is considering selling that airport, it may make a decision at Cabinet level to sell the whole airport. In other words, the air force could become a tenant instead of the air force owning it. So we might be considering having to acquire the whole property rather than just the FAC's current interest, whatever it is. There are many things to be considered as to what it is that we would be buying.
Depending on what we are buying, there will be a different price attached to it. We could be talking about something that might range from $5m, on the low end of the scale, where we might be buying just the residue of a lease on a small piece of ground, to $50m or $60m if we are buying the whole thing - or even more. I do not know. I would not attempt to put a value on it. Assuming that we do buy it, there arises the question of how we are going to operate it and what we are going to do with it, particularly if we are going to turn it into an international airport. What is the price tag? Mr Stevenson, I think, said that you could do it gradually; you do not have to do it overnight. That is probably true, but you still need to know what the price tag is.
I remember that 10 or 15 years ago it was suggested that to upgrade that airport to an international airport would cost something of the order of $60m. I presume that that had to do with upgrading the runways, the taxiways, the hardstandings, the terminal facilities, and the navigation aids that make it easy for aircraft to fly in and fly out without flying into the mountains around the place. Whether that is a good figure today or not, I would not know. There are many things that we would need to look at. I would suggest that, if the opportunity to purchase the airport is likely to arise in the very near future, we as an Assembly, and the Government, would be remiss if we were not working very hard now to consider all the aspects so as to be ready, if we consider it worthwhile, to make an offer. Otherwise we might be third or fourth in line instead of first. I would have hoped
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