Albanese does nothing on Sydney Airports

[Captain Sand Dune]

This debate about Syd's 2nd airport will go on 'till jet fuel is no longer avail.

This also seems to get trotted out when an encumbent government is in trouble and needs a diversionary tactic.

[fencehopper]

I can see most of the weasel pollies that are usually quiet coming to life a bit more to come to notice of the new foriegn minister, cause i can bet last dollar that when the next election comes or if Ranga screws up again they will try and make ol hopeless Bob leader. Look how long he survived while he sank NSW and the sat back and watched the chaos that followed. Expert at manipulating media and spin city champion, he'll be shapening up the knife now to be ready for the back stab of the decade!

[T28D]

He is in the Senate, can't be PM

[neville_nobody]

I suggest you google John Gorton. Carr would be very very long odds for PM but it is technically possible

[teresa green]

They could put in JC himself at the moment but still doubt they would get over the line, the more of this Thompson stuff comes out the more they sink into the sewer. And there is a lot more to go.

[neville_nobody]

Tension is building in the Liberal Party

TENSIONS between NSW and federal Coalition MPs over the construction of a second Sydney airport spilled over yesterday as one state member declared it would be built ''over my dead body''.

The NSW Liberal MP for Wollondilly, Jai Rowell, was responding to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald that 12 federal Coalition colleagues would lobby the Premier, Barry O'Farrell, to drop his opposition to a second airport.

Mr Rowell's electorate, in Sydney's south-west, takes in the federal government's preferred second airport site at Wilton. And at least three federal Liberal MPs, Alby Schultz, whose electorate includes the Wilton site, Russell Matheson, in an adjoining seat and the MP for Mitchell, Alex Hawke, have backed Mr O'Farrell's stance.

The federal Minister for Transport, Anthony Albanese, claimed the lobbying campaign by the federal MPs was a sign of bipartisan support for another airport.

Mr Rowell said he would reject any approaches from his federal Coalition colleagues to change his mind.

''I don't care who it is, over my dead body will I be supporting anything at Wilton,'' he said.

Mr Albanese said the government was considering funding a scoping study of the Wilton option.

[teresa green]

Another study, great. Are you aware they have have had FOUR studies so far to a very fast train to NTL? FOUR. Useless as tits on a bull.

[gobbledock]

Oink oink

Now now Teresa, these studies are a welcome source of income for the Consultants!
One needs to delve deeper into past and present consultancy groups to examine the political agenda each holds, links to politicians families, friends and former political mates. Yes indeed it is much cheaper to pay tens of millions fattening a mates pocket than spend billions building a new airport. This entire convoluted process is actually a system in itself designed to evade responsibility while topping up specific individuals consultancy pockets..
Yes indeed 'it's good to be the king'.

[Joker89]

Let's add a 1000ft and a domestic terminal to Richmond then connect to the north west rail link. . Oh that's right there's voters out there who bought cheap houses under established flight paths, better not get them off side.

[neville_nobody]

Now Canberra Airport Corp are lobbying.

Canberra Airport is urging the NSW premier to reject a housing developer's plans for thousands of new homes under its flight path which would block an expansion of the airport's capacity.
Canberra Airport chief executive Stephen Byron has backed Premier Barry O'Farrell's call to expand Canberra's terminal and build a high-speed rail service between Sydney and the national capital with a travel time of just one hour to ease the pressure off Sydney Airport.
The federal government wants a second airport within the Sydney basin to bolster the national economy and take pressure off the existing airport at Mascot.
Advertisement: Story continues below
It favours a site at Wilton, southwest of the city, but needs the state government's support before any work can begin.
Mr O'Farrell has rejected proposals for a second Sydney airport at either Badgerys Creek or Wilton.
He wants Canberra Airport expanded as an alternative and to include a high-speed rail link between Sydney and the nation's capital.
Mr Byron said the NSW government had to ensure its preferred option was not lost to them forever.
He said the NSW government was currently examining a development proposal from Village Building Company for 1850 homes at South Tralee near Queanbeyan, with a long-term plan for 5500 homes, which would be right under the flight path of an expanded Canberra airport.
The land is a rural corridor.
"[Premier O'Farrell] faces a developer trying to get a rezoning, to build 5500 houses directly under Canberra airport's flight path," he said.
"This is pretty critical for him, because without this he doesn't have a solution to Sydney's airport problems."
The NSW planning minister is expected to make a decision within two to three weeks.
He said building a high-speed rail link would cost the same amount as an airport.
Mr Byron said Badgerys Creek had been completely ruled out as a second airport site because there were 4440 homes directly under the flight path.
"We think we're a good option, we think we're the right option, but we're only an option if we don't have houses under the flight path," he said.
He said scores of people from western Sydney and Wollongong already drive to Canberra's airport to catch domestic flights because parking was cheaper than Sydney.
Mr Byron said a high-speed train would definitely be popular and would have the same commute time as people travelling from Melbourne's CBD to Tullamarine.
Earlier today, Mr O'Farrell said he understood Sydneysiders' concerns about noise.
"We took to the last election campaign a view that we shouldn't dump aircraft noise in Sydney's west and Sydney's southwest," the premier told Macquarie Radio Network.
"We are going to be the government that delivers on our promises and not the government, like Julia Gillard, that says one thing on one side of an election campaign and does another on the other side."
Comment has been sought from the NSW Planning Minister and Village Building Group.


Read more: Canberra Airport backs Sydney fast train

[TIMA9X]

50 years after it was first planned and 31 years after construction began

He said building a high-speed rail link would cost the same amount as an airport.

So Australian, we need a second Sydney airport so we build a train set to Canberra instead... remember how long it took the NSW governments to build the City to Bondi commuter extension, it never got to Bondi Beach as once planned..

Eastern Suburbs railway line - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Eastern Suburbs Railway was a part of engineer Dr John Bradfield's scheme for Sydney's railways (the Bradfield Scheme). The alignment and profile for the line was set in 1926 and construction on the railway was started by the NSW Department of Railways. Construction commenced with the building of stub tunnels at St James Railway Station. These tunnels ran southward from St James rising to clear the City Circle lines and turned east towards the Eastern Suburbs

The Eastern Suburbs line was finally opened on 23 June 1979 by then New South Wales premier Neville Wran around 50 years after it was first planned and 31 years after construction began

A Bondi Beach railway

In 1999 a private proposal to extend the railway to Bondi Beach at a cost of $197 million received backing from the Federal Government but the scheme did not go ahead. The project proposed to extend the Eastern Suburbs Railway from its current terminus at Bondi Junction to a new underground station at Bondi Beach. The Bondi Beach Railway Company, owned by Lend Lease Infrastructure and the Macquarie Bank, proposed to build and maintain the railway and to operate it for a 30-year term. The physical works involved the extension eastwards of the existing tunnels at Bondi Junction with the construction on a new 2.6 km single-track tunnel to the proposed Bondi Beach station site under South Bondi Park.
There was considerable opposition by local residents to the project, with concerns including the site chosen for the station, the impact on bus services and the proposed station use fare surcharge.[4] When the Airport Link Company, the operator of the Airport line went into receivership due to low patronage in 2000, interest in constructing the Bondi Beach extension collapsed. The plan has now been abandoned.

rest my case...

[denabol]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Badgery's Creek only cost money to whoever buys the site off the Australian government, which owns it.

Anything but Badgery's Creek costs money because it's owned by the various title holders.

[Frank Arouet]

Except for a tick in the appropriate box, what has all this to do with O'Farrell. Airports are a Federal thing.

[Beer Baron]

It has quite a bit to do with the State government really. Transport infrastructure (highways, train lines, bus services) must be provided to the site which is a state gov responsibility. Zoning planning for the Sydney basin to keep residential properties away from the anticipated flight paths is a state gov responsibility.
The are many more issues that will require cooperation between the state and federal governments.

Importantly, the final decision will have to be agreed upon by both Labour and the Coalition federally and within NSW otherwise it will continue to be a political hot potato and no government will take action as it would be political suicide.

[Fieldmouse]

If my memory serves me well,

SACL has first dibs on any new airport in the Sydney basin. So apart from all the political posturing, point scoring and general blowing of smoke up everyones butts, it'll happen when SACL is good and ready.

And the dollars involved will preclude anyone else from staring up in opposition.

They will eventually get their way, excluding small regionals, and helping Qantas get rid of most of those pesky maintenance hangars so that more room can be had for widebody aprons, car parks and shopping centres and generally continuing to be on a nice little earner.

See you back here in 10 years for the next installment. Oh hang on. I'll be retired and won't care. There you go.

[Alien Role]

The debate about a second Sydney airport - BUT WHY??

THE DEBATE SHOULD NOT BE ABOUT A SECOND SYDNEY AIRPORT, BUT MORE TO THE POINT, A SECOND NSW INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

Queensland has 3 inter' airports but the Gold Coast is not referred to as "Brisbane's second airport".
The logical position for another NSW inter' airport is the Hunter region. Already many travellers from north of the Hawkesbury choose to use Williamtown for their interstate travel and the Hunter region is growing in population and commercial activity.

In 1999, a consortium of ABIGroup/IRL put forward a proposal for an International airport on Kooragang Island (an island formed by the North and South arms of the Hunter river) which is mid way between Newcastle city and Williamtown. That airport was to be funded by private enterprise; that proposal was immediately "shot down" by the State and Federal labor MP's who had a monopoly on lower Hunter electorates. The greens of course, got in on the act - migratory birds / frogs etc.

Kooragang island is now most likely not an option due to industrial development in recent years.

So that brings us to Williamtown. Established prior to WW2, for the RAAF to protect the port and steel infrastructure. The steel works no longer exist and I doubt we would be the subject of a surprise attack from the east!
Now, what is the strategic / operational need for the RAAF to remain at Williamtown? The RAAF people would argue that it is imperitive for them to rush around in their F18's in the most traffic dense airspace in the country and they need to be near Sydney and to reside in beautiful Port Stephens.......it is time for the RAAF to be relocated to a more strategically appropriate location, therefore allowing Williamtown to be developed as "the second NSW International airport.

What benefits does Williamtown have?
it is in a "relatively" isolated location which would be easy to quarantine from residential development and has approach paths over water to the east and mainly farmland to the west.
it is close to freeway and rail infrastructure - a fast train to Sydney would be needed eventually. The terrain would already allow fastrail to the Central coast.
a good proportion of international tourists visit the Hunter region - golf resorts / wine country / whale watching etc. Why should they not begin the tours from the Hunter? it is only a matter of marketing.
because of the sparce residential in the area it could (and should now) operate without a curfew.
because of the close proximity to freeway / rail , it would be an ideal major airfreight terminal.
the weather is generally benign with few fogs through autumn/winter; the fogs slide down the Hunter valley from the nw so CAT3B approach on RW30 would fix that.

All that is needed in this sorry debate is logical and informed consideration.
The big question is, are our politicians capable of that , and courageous enough to make a decision based on good policy rather than politics??

Role on .....

[SpannerTwister]

Answer

Originally Posted by Alien Role

All that is needed in this sorry debate is logical and informed consideration.
The big question is, are our politicians capable of that , and courageous enough to make a decision based on good policy rather than politics??

No. Any more questions ?

ST

[limelight]

Common sense rules the day, Ben again.

Here’s a radical pre-budget thought, let’s cut Sydney loose

April 11, 2012 – 11:38 am, by Ben Sandilands

Here’s a radical thought about keeping the budget in surplus and ending the perennial lacerations of the 2nd Sydney Airport debate.
Cut Sydney loose.
Tell the entitled, chronically poorly managed city that it’s on its own. The rest of Australia doesn’t need it. Not just in terms of its airport, but its pathetically badly managed ports, and hopeless rail infrastructure, and appalling record when it comes to major road building, whether in private public partnership, or just as projects funded by varying amounts of state and federal monies.
Australia could save tens of billions of dollars by telling Sydney, and its current Premier Barry O’Farrell, that it will get not one dollar more than is mathematically due to it from the GST allocations and tax revenues directly reflecting its economic activity, which relative to the rest of the country, is in a death spiral.
Let’s pull the situation apart to its fundamentals.
Sydney, collectively, and under every state government of every political hue, believes it has an automatic right to being the gateway to the nation, and the hub for most of its commerce.
But that’s over and finished. Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese has been far too indulgent in claiming that Sydney Airport is critical to the rest of Australian air transport, and that 40% of all domestic aircraft pass through Sydney airport at least once a day, which incidentally, they don’t.
And not all those that pass through Sydney need to. The airlines could within a few weeks, rearrange their fleet deployments to ensure that as little of their capacity as possible is exposed to the daily inefficiency of the airport, meaning that what goes wrong at Sydney will to a large degree only affect jets that do nothing but fly to and from Sydney from somewhere else, and not onwards to and from other destinations during the day.
There is no reason to put up with the miserable inefficiency of Sydney to change from an interstate to international flight, unless you are one of the diminishing fraction of people flying Qantas, and even Qantas doesn’t want you to fly it anymore, preferring you to change over to British Airways to get to London, or switch over to Malaysia Airlines or its new premium short haul carrier in Kuala Lumpur. No wait, that didn’t happen for some reason, like they wanted to do naughty things to Qantas, or thought we were wankers, or whatever.
Let’s get real. If you live in Melbourne, even Qantas will fly you non-stop to LAX. You’d be barking made to go via Sydney. And all those cruel nasty foreign Asian carriers, apart from the ones Qantas tried to suck up to, can fly you non-stop from Melbourne to all the major hubs, where you can easily, and for less money, fly direct to cities Qantas managers couldn’t find in an atlas standing up in a phone booth. If it’s not the mother country, Qantas isn’t interested, and if it is the mother country, it isn’t interested as much as used to be anyhow. So come along possums, hum ‘I still Call Australia Home’ and fly via Sydney if you must, as getting screwed doing it is part of your patriotic duty as an imbecile.
The last large public transport projects delivered in anything resembling economical efficiency in NSW were the Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932) and in the immediately preceding years, the initial stations of the electric City Railway.
The other day Anthony Albanese officiated at the opening of the world’s slowest most inefficiently delivered motorway upgrade in history, at the duplication of the M5 from near Campbelltown to the M7 Junction. It took three years to go about seven kilometres. First the RTA built, make that hand crafted with a man with a shovel and ten supervisors, the two extra lanes, then ripped up the other two lanes. It plonked a pedestrian overpass over the freeway that took so long from the first foundations to the first graffiti upon opening that an entire generation was born and graduating from pre-school before it was finished.
The previous Labor Premier of NSW, Kristina Keneally, spent so long getting her name spelled right in the newspapers in her short tenure in the post that she lost oversight of the Sydney-Inner West metro line, and set a record for spending at least $500 million on a project for which not a single metre of tunnel and rail was dug or laid.
NSW has not successfully built a single new underground rail line since Bradfield. The Eastern Suburbs line was stopped at Bondi Junction, the Bondi Beach line was stopped by yuppies, (it’s our beach, we’re selfish, p*ss off is a reasonable summary) the Chatswood-Parramatta line was stopped at Epping and the really useful station, at Kuringai TAFE, wasn’t built even in the shortened bit because it meant the poor dears with views of the Lane Cove River might have glimpsed and heard trains using a short bridge. And the Airport Line, which attempts to serve the CBD in a backwards direction, went broke, twice.
Sydney has a second airport it can have for free at Badgerys Creek. All the Federal Government has to do is sell it, to anyone prepared to inject billions of dollars back in the public purse and pay for the project, assuming the owners of the existing Sydney Airport, don’t exercise their first right of refusal.
But it won’t even take such a gift. The NSW government apparently believes the chairman of Sydney Airport, Max Moore-Wilton, in his claims that not only is there no problem at Sydney Airport now, but that it will cope perfectly well until 2049. Which is rubbish.
Sydney’s pretensions to being a world city seem incapable of understanding that by the time the economically driven travel booms in China, India and Vietnam, not to mention eastern Europe, central Asia, and resource rich Africa, reach out to fly thousands of additional services a week to Sydney Airport, it will be full.
There is not going to be any room.
There is serious congestion at favoured times now. Barry O’Farrell appears to be totally impervious to the need for a business capital to have convenient flights, and a train, even a 400 kmh train to Canberra, or Melbourne, isn’t going to be a relevant solution to flight congestion, although it will prove critical to the development of the entire SE Australian economy in century ahead.
The only answer to the infrastructure stupidity at Sydney is to let it go. It’s time for Australia to move on, to a future enriched by Sydney’s willing non-participation.


Could not have put it better myself.

[Frank Arouet]

Cut Sydney loose

I've already done that with Tasmania. Cut off all my maps, simply doesn't exist any more, end of story.

[teresa green]

Now they cottoned to some place on the Central Coast, west of the F3. Anynbody who drives the F3 will tell you that is hillbilly country out there. Not really suitable terrain for aircraft, especially lighties. Will see where this leads.