[Peetwo]

Addendum: Hansard out -

Reference:

Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

Huge turn out to our senate aviation noise inquiry here in Brisbane thanks to everyone across the community who have been speaking out about this issue for years. Air Services Australia failure exposed #BFPCA

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Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

@BFPCA_ says that while AirServices Australia boss Jason Harfield may claim that flight path design is ASA's "bread and butter" they are highly incompetent and unable to do the work ASA is required to do.

@BFPCA_ says that ASA, in all their technical expertise, has created a scenario that is not reducing noise but is creating an amphitheatre.

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Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

BFPCA Chairman Prof Marcus Foth says of AirservicesAustralia "The fish rots from the head" and calls for the Minister to take action against the CEO

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Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

@BFPCA_ says Airservices Australia is a "noodle mix" of conflicts of interest when regulating noise while also responsible for flight paths and airspace operations. #RRAT #noiseinquiry

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Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

@YourAFAP tells inquiry that the Minister has had time to host roundtables with airports and unions but not the community.

Albanese Labor Government ignoring the Brisbane community. #RRAT

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Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

@BFPCA_ has repeatedly been refused meetings with Minister Catherine King and have even travelled to Canberra without success. Where is the Minister?

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Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

In response to a question from inquiry on whether @BrisbaneAirport believe they are receiving a bad wrap for the incompetence of ASA, BNE CEO responded ‘Yes’ #rrat

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Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

Both @Qantas and @VirginAustralia have told the Inquiry they are frustrated that ASA is not allowing airlines to use technology to reduce noise and reform airspace management that has been installed on planes for twenty years. #RRAT

Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

@VirginAustralia says it has raised this issue and the failings of ASA with Minister King directly. What is the Minister’s response? Radio silence.

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Senator The Hon. Bridget McKenzie
@senbmckenzie

Labor needs to meet with the local community and hear directly their concerns.
AirServices Australia boss should not be reappointed by Labor.
Thanks to all who came out to the inquiry.
???


Finally here are some of the 'audio only' segments from the public hearing (the evidence given from Prof Foth Chair of the 'Brisbane Flight Path Community Alliance' is well worth taking the time to listen to, the guy is well briefed and all over the subject matter and doesn't hold back when condemning Harfwit & CO...  ):

BFPCA:

AFAP:

Qantas & Virgin:

Hansard: Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee 15/04/2024 - Impact and mitigation of aircraft noise or PDF version

BFPCA:

Prof Froth: BFPCA's hope is that this inquiry will shine a light on the state capture of Australia's regulatory framework by the aviation industry, including unethical practices and misconduct by Airservices Australia. Airservices have repeatedly breached public trust. They have abused their powers to remove overwater operations without consultation or reapproval and they have failed to meet ministerial conditions imposed upon them under the EPBC Act. In the definition of Australia's National Anti-Corruption Commission, this constitutes corrupt conduct..

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CHAIR: Thank you. I might ask a threshold question and then throw to Senator McKenzie. You've made some very strong allegations in your submission—and you repeated them then—about the conflicts, and I think you've used the word 'corrupt'. Can I clarify, though? Is the evidence that members of Airservices Australia are receiving a personal benefit associated with the regulation of airport and aircraft noise, or is it just that they receive extra funding to fund their organisation et cetera in a way that's conflicted and potentially colours their advice?

Prof. Foth : We speak here as representatives of the community. We are not lawyers who can ascertain whether the allegations of corrupt conduct are correct. That's why we have a National Anti-Corruption Commission. We read the information on the Anti-Corruption Commission's website. Our layman's reading is that they meet the definition of corrupt conduct.

CHAIR: I'm not asking a legal question, though. I, too, don't exactly know. I'm not a lawyer myself. I'm asking: is the allegation that they are receiving a personal benefit—they getting extra money or kickbacks or some such—or is it just that the advice they're giving is coloured by the industry funding they receive?

Prof. Foth : We definitely have sufficient evidence to ascertain that Airservices have a conflict of interest because they've been corporatised. They operate as a company in service of the aviation industry. That's actually something that they have publicly admitted in previous Senate estimates hearings. We believe there is an unmanaged conflict of interest with section 9 of the Air Services Act 1995 that stipulates that their main priority should be safety in the air and protection of communities on the ground. They are prioritising profits.

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Senator McKENZIE: Thank you, everyone, for attending. It's great to see you again. My question essentially goes to Airservices Australia. You mentioned in your submission and in your opening remarks that the ombudsman in 2021 reported that Airservices Australia did not accurately model new flight paths for Brisbane Airport, or their noise impacts, before a parallel runway opened in July 2020. That's the ombudsman's reported finding. Your commentary around Airservices Australia, I think, continues along a well-worn path that we've all been on for a long time. It's a bit like cutting corners on your own homework, isn't it, if they're in charge of both doing the consultation and other aspects of that? Could you unpack that for the committee, because, as I understand it, the reappointment of the CEO, Jason Harfield, is in front of Minister King right now. I would really like your community's response to that now. I know she has refused to meet, but this is your opportunity.

Prof. Foth : Thank you for the opportunity to address this question. I would first refer the committee to our submission and, specifically, the chronology. Airservices submitted a referral under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act for the airspace in Brisbane in 2007. Malcolm Turnbull, being environment minister at the time, attached ministerial conditions to that approval, and one of the conditions stipulated that Airservices was required to verify what was, at the time, draft forecast noise modelling in 2007 closer to the launch of the runway.

What we found through freedom of information requests and documents that are available to the committee via our submission is that Airservices did, as you say, cut corners and mark their own homework. Not only did they mark their own homework, but they asked their partner, Brisbane Airport Corporation, to do the assessment for them. So the scrutiny was outsourced to the project proponent. The Aircraft Noise Ombudsman, in his report in 2021, specifically mentions a noise comparison report that was fabricated by the airport. The Aircraft Noise Ombudsman, whilst it's beyond the charter of conducting a full investigation into administrative processes, did include a mention that suggests that this noise comparison report that the airport produced was very biased. It was obviously painting a picture of the project in their favour. Airservices then took that report, put it on their letterhead and sent it to the environment minister. Everything was approved without further consultation or scrutiny.

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Senator WATERS: Mrs Bignell, I have some questions for you. I thought your observations about your involvement in the group that you've been appointed to represent the community on were really very disappointing, and I share your frustration. Can you give us a potted version of your experience of the so-called community consultation that you've been engaged in and the outcomes it's produced?

Mrs Bignell : As a brief note for an opening address, Minister King continues to neglect her responsibility as an elected politician by the people on this matter. Minister King has demonstrated that the AAB is the only mechanism that the Brisbane community have to bring their concerns forward. AAB's role, as per their terms of reference, is to implement the Noise Action Plan for Brisbane. Community representatives feel that we are there just to mark better engagement and to mark Airservices and BAC's homework.

The chair's role of independence is questionable to community reps. I was expecting more support from the AAB to bring about positive action for the community. I was not expecting to be requested to suppress information from my community. I was not expecting to feel like there was a bias—mainly the interactions with the chair and industry in favour of industry. My submissions include various examples.

AAB has resulted in zero outcomes for the community thus far. It has met basically four times in person and once online. To give you an example, we would have expected that the chair would investigate further the authenticity of the business case of Qantas and Jetstar to retrofit the A320 fuel vents, but we were given a letter from the chair that demonstrated this case. This case needed to be tested, and it wasn't. We also would have thought the chair would request the full-length runway departure trial to be done properly with a new SID and air service, because Airservices' modelling has proven over the last nearly four years to be incorrect.

The biggest impact on most communities is aviation noise. Noise impacts, such as the health issues, are a banned subject at AAB. BACACG is not the forum to be addressing such serious issues. Airservices' Noise Action Plan for Brisbane has no noise metric for the reduction in noise. Does their action plan mean one decibel less or 10 decibels less? Does it mean we can sleep at night?

So what is the end goal here? The airport is there for its efficiencies, and that equates to profits, which are ranked over our community. Industry has no consequences for not doing the right thing by community or incentives for doing the right thing by community. This is why the Senate inquiry committee must look at the London city noise action plan. This is a great example of the use of parliamentary regulatory framework in order to safeguard and protect the community for Brisbane as a whole and Australia. We need to strike a balance. We are thousands of families around Brisbane and Australia suffering at the hands of an unregulated industry. We are not their collateral damage. We are Australians, and we matter

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Senator COLBECK: I just want to go back to the discussion around the restrictions at Sydney airport. You make your points in relation to the profitability of the airport and the issues of that matter, but I do have a concern that it's being presented as if there are no issues as a result of the restrictions at Sydney airport, and there are some issues that come from that. The pilots have put to us, for example, that they have some concerns that it raises some safety issues with requirements for them to operate outside international safety parameters. I just want to ask you how you see that being balanced. It goes back to the question that the chair asked at the outset of your evidence today. It is a really important matter, and I acknowledge that you have recognised it there in what you've said, but how do we effectively get a system that appropriately balances those matters? That also is important. You've acknowledged that there's a requirement for the airport to be there. The issue that you're looking to see is a fair balance in the operation of that and the consideration of your issue, as I see what you've said today. So how do we deal with those things, which are actually critical in the proper operation of the system?

Prof. Foth : Regarding the submission from the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, I've read it twice since it was uploaded. I believe that they do offer a fair critique, but the critique is aimed at the kinds of mechanisms and instruments that the airport is now clutching onto. For instance, one major part of the submission deals with the tailwind reductions. That is seen as only a minor change, if it were to come into effect, in terms of producing a noticeable impact on Brisbane communities, and we can see why they are arguing that there are safety implications around increasing the tailwind limitation back to 10 knots.

The submission is entirely comment free when it comes to flight caps and curfews. There's nothing of concern in not using the city ends of the runways, for instance, and only using overwater operations to avoid residential areas, as is done in Sydney. Sydney has pretty much operated incident free as a result of those measures that were introduced. But I think what we also need to acknowledge is the bigger picture of the state being captured here by the industry, as you outlined in the beginning. We're not just dealing with a regulatory framework that is not fit for purpose; we're actually dealing with a situation where there's a revolving door of board appointments—of public servants that go from the one side of the spectrum to the other. We're looking at board appointments at Airservices Australia and we see that the same person is also a director of the Western Sydney Airport and has come from an airline, and goes back to that airline.

So this entangled spaghetti mess of nepotism and corruption is something that we want to take further. The Senate inquiry is, obviously, a major achievement for this community, but we won't stop here. We will continue to put the blowtorch on the airport until all our demands are met, and those that have done wrong have been put to justice.

Senator COLBECK: I have no further questions, Chair.

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CHAIR: I get a bit lost with some of the jargon here, but your contention is that this trial actually didn't change the flight path that was used for take-off and landing. Is that correct?

Prof. Foth : Correct.

CHAIR: Is my conclusion correct?

Prof. Foth : Yes, Senator, that is correct. In a nutshell, what happened was that in the lead-up to the 2022 federal election, the coalition government set up BAPAF, which was another entity, I suppose, similar to AAB. It had different membership on it.

CHAIR: Right.

Prof. Foth : That committee recommended that trials were supposed to be done in order to give the community much more immediate relief. Those members were not aviation experts. However, in the last round of Senate estimates, we heard from Peter Curran, who blamed the members for not giving Airservices proper instructions to increase the height markers in order to conduct a proper trial.

CHAIR: Right.

Prof. Foth : So they have disingenuously interpreted the task they were given by this committee. They have, in fact, prohibited intersection departures, but that is completely useless without increasing height markers because, as you would know, pilots would enter into the flight management system the length of the runway, the weight of the aircraft and where they have to head to. If they point into the sky in the same spot, they will always aim at that same spot and reach that same spot whether they use the full length of the runway or half of the runway. That is the actual reason why Airservices' trial produced no noise reduction whatsoever. We heard from Ron Brent, the chair of AAB, that this had the same result in Perth. We believe that is the reason why the trials in both Perth and Brisbane need to be redone with proper independent experts that are actually increasing these height markers. You don't have to be an expert to realise that if I fly at an altitude over people before and then I fly at the same altitude afterwards, there's no difference.

CHAIR: There's no difference. Yes, I'm just trying to make sure I'm fully across it. The contention is—or, I suppose, the theory of the trial is—that if you put the height marker higher and the plane reaches altitude quicker, that will reduce noise for some communities at least. But, presumably, the corresponding cost—does it cost more? Does it use more fuel to get the plane to that height? What's the resistance to doing that?

Prof. Foth : First of all: yes, it does reduce noise, and it does reduce noise anywhere in the world—except in Australia. We don't believe that the laws of physics are any different in this country from what they are elsewhere in the world. The reason for the resistance is, really, profit. Profit is the No. 1 criterion that the aviation industry operates by, and so the real point there is the taxi time. It takes longer for a plane to taxi all the way to the very beginning of the runway and to turn around, so it does create efficiencies. But this is just one of the examples where profits, commercial considerations and efficiencies are trumping the protection of communities on the ground.

CHAIR: So it's not so much the use of fuel that's the extra cost; it's the time taken. Is that the contention of the airlines, or is it both?

Prof. Foth : It is probably a bit of both. But, again, we have now experienced four years—and some communities even longer; since Kevin Rudd marched in Oxford Street in Bulimba in the lead-up to him entering parliament—and we have not seen any compromise, any sacrifice or any kind of bone being thrown to the community by the airport or Airservices whatsoever.

MTF...P2