Page 2990 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 September 1994
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in this year's budget the Government has already taken up the question of the ACT being a full member of Partnership Australia. I am sure that that initiative will be welcomed by all members of the committee. Meeting tourist accommodation needs is an important component in effectively meeting tourist demand in the ACT.
The final recommendation, at paragraph 10.6, states:
The committee recommends that the ACT Government ensure that the further development of Canberra airport be conditional on a full environmental impact study.
I believe that this is absolutely critical in terms of assessing any international capability of the ACT in the future. A full environmental assessment of what the development of Canberra Airport to international capability would mean in environmental terms is critical. I believe that the Canberra community will simply not allow poor consideration of these issues.
I would like to comment briefly on my visit earlier this year to Cairns Airport. It was very interesting to contrast the volume of air traffic which comes through the Cairns International Airport with that which comes through our own terminal here in Canberra. The Cairns Port Authority was actually looking at further expansion of the airport in Cairns, potentially to take even more international air traffic into that region of Australia. It is notable that the Cairns Airport does not have a curfew. I do not believe that that necessarily means that the Canberra Airport will not have a curfew in the future. I think it is an issue that is worth serious consideration by our community here in the ACT.
They are also very concerned about the flight paths of international air carriers over Cairns. In recent times, the issue has been a quite controversial one in relation to residents in that area. The committee had representations from the City of Queanbeyan. Their representatives spoke in fairly expansive terms about the noise issue for residents of Queanbeyan at the current time. So any proposals to extend the capability of Canberra Airport to enable more international flights to come into Canberra will have an impact on people who live near the airport, and we need to give close consideration to that.
At the moment, there are proposals to extend the Cairns Airport runway even further. The community is assessing a possible runway to be created on the mudflats which exist close to the Cairns Airport. I believe that that community needs to come to terms with the issue of whether further development of the airport in Cairns is desirable, even if the demand is there. In my view, Cairns Airport has basically expanded to the point where it really cannot go much further without serious environmental damage being sustained in that area. In our assessment of the development of Canberra Airport in the future we also considered the continuing growth of Sydney Airport and the anticipated development of the Badgery's Creek airport. I note recent developments, announced publicly, in additional domestic flights between Brisbane and Canberra. That has happened since the committee reported. I see it as a very good sign for the future that we have a very healthy situation as far as Canberra Airport is concerned.
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