Page 6012 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 8 December 2010
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despite considerable protests from the ACT government and indeed from other key stakeholders.
In relation to south Tralee, the Chief Minister’s Department has coordinated a whole-of-government agency submission to the most recent process, the Queanbeyan City Council’s public exhibition of the Draft Queanbeyan local environmental plan (South Tralee) 2010, which closed on 2 November 2010.
This latest ACT submission reiterated our longstanding opposition to the rezoning, highlighting a range of issues, including the incompatibility of land uses with existing and future industrial operations at Hume; the likely concern from future residents in the proposed development regarding the operations of the Canberra airport, which will create pressure for a curfew on the airport’s operations or lead to calls for noise sharing by existing Queanbeyan and Canberra residents; the lack of evidence regarding the adequacy of the proposed buffer adjacent to Hume, particularly given the range of facilities already in place in Hume that may give rise to concerns from future residents in the area; and the lack of agreed funding arrangements in place to adequately compensate the ACT for the infrastructure and services required to support these developments.
Despite these concerns, Queanbeyan City Council, at its meeting on 17 November 2010, gave approval for the south Tralee development project, which has now been referred to the New South Wales government for final approval. I understand that the Queanbeyan City Council received some 2,000 submissions on the south Tralee plan, with a reported 65 per cent being in favour and 35 per cent against. I am also advised that the Canberra airport and airlines that operate out of Canberra airport—Virgin Blue, Qantas, Brindabella Airlines and Tiger Airways—all provided submissions raising aircraft flight path and aircraft noise concerns, as did the federal Department of Infrastructure and Transport and Airservices Australia.
Importantly, the ACT government has not just let this matter rest. Following the approval by Queanbeyan City Council, I wrote to the New South Wales Premier, Kristina Keneally, on 29 November 2010, detailing the ACT government’s key concerns with the proposed residential development of south Tralee.
This brings me to the second important matter which is part of Mr Rattenbury’s motion, the operation of the Canberra airport and issues of aircraft flight paths and aircraft noise. It is the Australian government that has principal responsibility for all federally leased airports, which includes Canberra airport. The commonwealth Airports Act 1996 establishes a comprehensive framework for the regulation of the 22 federally leased airports.
As I have previously stated, the ACT government acknowledges the economic importance of Canberra airport to the ACT and to our regional economy. The airport provides significant employment through the businesses that are based there and through the large amount of construction activity that has occurred in recent years. It also offers key national transport connections, a business park, general aviation facilities and important defence and security facilities.
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