Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (29 February) . . Page.. 461 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

need me to tell you the difficulty that governments and airport authorities have, because of the nature of airports, in seeing that there is minimum disruption to local communities. There are very difficult issues to be worked through, and I believe that the ACT community needs its Government to be there on its behalf.

There are also very important development issues that all in the chamber have a great interest in. I have heard Mr Kaine talk about the development potential around the Canberra Airport. He may have something more to say about it today. We need to have our share or a seat around the table in respect of any future ownership, so that we can again assert the primacy of the ACT. I repeat that this is another one of those areas where we do not want someone, potentially someone from outside the ACT, or some group, running an airport for their interests and not the interests of the ACT.

There is another very dominant area, and that is planning - a subject of much interest in the ACT. We want to know that the airport fits into the general planning arrangements for the ACT. The Minister, in his reply, spoke about the need to tie that in with Speedrail so that we do not necessarily have two competing forces. We want them both. We want an important airport and we want Speedrail, but they will be running, I would hope, if we have a say in it, in a cooperative manner, not in a competitive manner. We need, therefore, to have our influence reflected in that way.

There has been considerable interest in the airport being used as an international freight terminal. We have seen in recent time that there is likely to be very strong competition for such a terminal, should one eventuate; so we need to have our interest reflected strongly in order to pursue that particular line.

MR SPEAKER: Order! It being 45 minutes after the commencement of Assembly business, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 77.

Motion (by Mr De Domenico) agreed to:

That the time allotted to Assembly business be extended by 30 minutes.

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, the airport, as we know, is a major asset to this city and to this region. It also presents problems to this city and this region. Therefore, we must maintain the closest possible interest in the future of that airport.

MR KAINE (11.17): We are considering the Government's response to a short report that the committee put to the Government some time ago after the committee members to do with the future of airports in Australia. At that conference a number of interesting issues were raised about the use of airports, their purpose in the community and how they could become much more than just places at which aeroplanes landed and took off and moved people about.

There were some interesting statements made - for example, that airports are not destinations. They are simply places through which people pass in order to get to somewhere, which is an interesting concept because I think we tend to look at airports as places that people go from and to. In fact, that is not the case at all. In the case of one

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .