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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (30 March) . . Page.. 1194 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

of Passengers - Impulse Schedules"; the one about the demand for the Moorabbin-Canberra air corridor by Market Attitude Research Surveys; and the 1999 New South Wales regional airline - - -

Mr Quinlan: The Moorabbin numbers have been seen as less assured. Bankstown's are significantly understated.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I did not interrupt him.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MS CARNELL: And the 1999 New South Wales regional airline market demand study of opportunities for Canberra. Mr Speaker, as you can see, quite a large number of surveys have been done and all have pointed out the benefits that we spoke about earlier.

I would like to clarify a couple of issues that were raised by Ms Tucker and then some by Mr Berry. Ms Tucker made the point that she supports Impulse Airlines but does not support the ACT Government putting any money into it. I would have to say quite categorically: No money, no airline; it is that simple. Impulse Airlines, as we have all said, have a very sound and extremely comprehensive business plan which relates to developing jet services on, initially, the Sydney to Melbourne and Sydney to Brisbane routes. Only later did it have any intention of expanding routes to other capitals and Canberra was quite a long way down the track.

The business plan matches the capital requirements and cash flow to the financial resources available to Impulse and its backers and is based upon having Impulse's new operating headquarters and heavy engineering base at one of the capital cities where Impulse will be flying. That means that if it had gone ahead in the way initially planned Impulse would have had to have had its engineering and maintenance facilities in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. Impulse intends to start jet services before the end of the financial year, as we know, which meant that the decision on where the servicing and heavy engineering facilities were going needed to be sorted out very quickly for Impulse to satisfy the airline operators certificate requirements.

If Impulse begins its national operations without committing to Canberra, it will not establish its operating headquarters or its heavy engineering or maintenance facilities here. That is quite simple, Mr Speaker. If it does not do it now, why would it in the future? That, in turn, would make it harder for Impulse to begin developing regional routes out of Canberra as it would not have its operations base here to help spread the costs of that development. So, if Impulse chose not to locate in Canberra now, we would lose the direct business opportunities and it would delay the development of Canberra as a hub for quite some time.

The ACT's capital injection into Impulse is recognition of the additional costs that Mr McGowan and Impulse will face in changing its plans at short notice and for the financial impact that that decision will have on its business plan. So, there is actually a very good reason, Mr Speaker. If it was not for the financial assistance from the ACT Government, obviously it would be a significantly better approach from Impulse's

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