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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (30 March) . . Page.. 1190 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The Minister stated in question time that the Capital Airport Group are not there because they are not getting any of the assistance, but it is a fact that many of the actions that Impulse will be committing itself to undertake are dependent on agreement with the Capital Airport Group. It is therefore very unclear what would happen to this assistance package if a dispute should arise between Impulse and the Capital Airport Group. Mr Kaine said that it was none of our business to know the details of the relationship between the two organisations. That is of concern to me, too, because questions are being asked and need to be answered about the relationship between this $10m, or the $8m in particular, and where the direct benefit actually goes.

I found it very interesting to look at the report prepared by ACIL Consulting for Impulse Airlines. I quote from the section headed "Canberra International Airport construction activities":

What we are hearing there is that the airport is going to be involved in such building. How is it that in the statement of intent we have heavy maintenance building now being carried out by Impulse under paragraph 2.1, an operations office building being carried out by Impulse under paragraph 2.2 and a call centre building being carried out by Impulse, not the airport, under paragraph 2.3. It adds up to $12m. That is $12m Canberra Airport is not spending. Guess what? The amount of $8m for Impulse is certainly going to help significantly. Impulse will now build all those things. The question that has to be asked is: Does the airport no longer have to spend that money because the ACT Government is giving it to Impulse to do the work that Canberra Airport said to Impulse it would do to attract them to the airport?

The situation just highlights the folly of privatising airports which are local monopolies. We have come to the situation where we are being asked, to paraphrase an old saying, to accept that what is good for the Capital Airport Group must be good for Canberra. Considerable blurring is happening here about the policies of the Government on promoting economic development in the ACT and the commercial objectives of the Canberra Airport. For example, it was quite enlightening to hear from the Chief Minister yesterday that no assessment has been done of alternative business development opportunities that could have been undertaken by the Government for an expenditure of this much.

I understand that Impulse only started seriously considering establishing their operations here about four weeks ago, after an approach from the Capital Airport Group. Whilst it is true that Impulse wanted to expand its regional operations over time and probably would have expanded its use of Canberra Airport as a regional hub in future years, it was not their immediate objective. I understand that their primary objective, which they have been working on for some time, is to establish new trunk route services between the eastern capital cities with their new B717 jets to compete against Qantas and Ansett airlines.

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