I miss 727s, particularly the two that used to blast out of Brisbane at 0100 and 0300 respectively.
They were cool.
The whole problem with parliamentary democracy is that none of the erky little MPs we pay ****eloads of money to wants to get voted out.
People who hear that an airport/motorway/dam/prison is being planned for their area tend to vote their local MP out after a long, noisy and damaging campaign against the Big Bad Government who's Trampling Their Rights.
In SE Queensland this phenomenon has stymied a major dam project and a second road between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, because any MP in the firing line of these two projects got ousted. Guess what... no pollie since then has gone near roads or dams, despite a serious lack of both.
No doubt every person here can point to a couple of planned (and needed) developments in their area that had the same result.
So...a new airport; what's in it for the MPs? People in unaffected seats are probably not going to turn around and say 'Yay! New airport! We'll vote for that'! It's not a big, short term vote winner like a hospital because most voters aren't aware of Sydney's limitations. People in affected seats are going to be preparing banners, bumper stickers and Fookbook campaign sites, so all the MP will get is bad karma in those areas and indifference in the others.
Only when the airport really jams up will our esteemed leaders start looking around at the industry with big, wide eyes saying 'What can we doooo
? No-one told us this would happen'! and expecting a whole airport that can be produced from scratch and built in week.