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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (30 March) . . Page.. 1193 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
which is a signatory to the national strategy for ecologically sustainable development, continues to ignore the need to integrate both short- and long-term economic, environmental, social and equity considerations into its decision-making.
There should be an assessment of the environmental implications of this package, not just in terms of local impacts, such as any increase in aircraft noise or pollution from the new maintenance facility, but also how this proposal would affect overall levels of air traffic in Australia. Aircraft are the most polluting and energy consuming forms of transport and I think Australian governments as a whole should look at this issue more closely. Unfortunately, this has happened to only a very limited extent with the investigation of high-speed rail links that can compete with air travel. (Further extension of time granted)
As an example of my calls for a more extensive assessment of this proposal, it would be interesting to know whether there would be a greater public benefit from spending $10m on developing better rail transport links in the region, rather than promoting more air travel. As usual, I am concerned about the process by which this agreement has come about and the lack of detail, and find it difficult to support the proposal because of the haste and that lack of detail - the lack of assessment of the opportunity cost of this expenditure and the fact that the proposal goes against the need for all governments not to get into these bidding wars.
My reluctance to support this proposal should not be seen as a negative reflection on Impulse Airlines. I accept their desire to expand their business and I wish them well. I am merely questioning the need for the ACT Government to intervene in what should really be a commercial negotiation between the Capital Airport Group and Impulse. If the Capital Airport Group thinks that the establishment of Impulse at its airport will provide good returns to the group in the long term and have multiplier effects on its operations, I believe that the Capital Airport Group, rather than the Government, should have been taking the initiative to secure Impulse's agreement. That is exactly what they did, as I have already pointed out. But now they do not have to, thanks to the Government.
MS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (5.54), in reply: Mr Speaker, in closing the debate, I would like to answer a number of questions that were raised during the debate. First, I think that Mr Quinlan may have made a bit of a mistake, yet another, when he indicated, I think, that the figures with regard to the number of people had been put together on one survey.
Mr Quinlan: No, I mentioned four surveys.
MS CARNELL
: Even if it was said that there were four surveys, Mr Speaker, there was the survey by the Institute of Transport Studies, University of Sydney, in its determination of passenger potential associated with a regional hub at Canberra International Airport of May 1999; the one about the demand for a Canberra-Bankstown air corridor by Market Attitudes Research Surveys in September 1999; the one by Purdon and Associates of 20 August 1998, entitled "Canberra Airport Studies - Survey
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