E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC SYDNEY 702
WEDNESDAY, 31 JANUARY 2024

SUBJECTS: Western Sydney Airport Flight Paths

SARAH MACDONALD, INTERVIEWER: I want to go to Susan Templeman first because we were just talking to a representative of the International Heritage Organization that’s looked at the Blue Mountains and said it was a topic for debate at International Heritage meetings. Susan Templeman is the MP for Macquarie, which covers the Blue Mountains. Good morning.

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MACQUARIE AND SPECIAL ENVOY FOR THE ARTS, SUSAN TEMPLEMAN: Morning Sarah.

MACDONALD: Will you be able to see planes and hear them from say, Echo point and World Heritage important spots in the Mountains?

TEMPLEMAN: That’s what the draft EIS tells us and that’s why people are so concerned. And I have certainly included concerns about the impact on the natural environment plus our World Heritage listing in my submission in response to the draft EIS. And I think Professor McKay who you spoke with summed up very well what the risk is. And in that way I think that it’s very important that it’s not just Blue Mountains people that put in submissions about those sorts of issues, but people in Sydney who love visiting the mountains, who value the nature- you know we are the lungs of the city – that people jump on before one minute to midnight and put in a submission through the WSI flightpaths website. It’s very easy to do. And Sarah if people care about this, and I hope Richard helped highlight some of the issues, then I urge them to do that.

MACDONALD: Have you told your fellow MP the Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King about the Blue Mountains heritage area possibly being at risk by the flight paths?

TEMPLEMAN: I’ve been speaking about my concerns with these flight paths for seven years. So everyone in parliament knows that I value deeply the environment we live in but also the quality of life that people have in the Mountains. We chose to live a long way away from beaches and a whole lot of other things because of that. And that’s why I think we’re going to see a lot of submissions. And there has been more than three and a half months for people to put in submissions, and we’ve had the proposed flight paths since June last year. So there’s been a lot of time which has been good for people to absorb the information and finally recognize what the risk is. Now these are proposed flight paths and just as the Department listened when we put in submission to the first iteration of this seven years ago, that resulted in a change of flight paths. I hope that equally the submissions that are put in are listened to so that we can reduce wherever possible the impact on our community in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury.

MACDONALD: And you have do have lovely swimming spots with waterfalls and the like. We’re talking about what’s up in the air with Susan Templeman. She’s the ALP member for Macquarie which covers the Mountains. In terms of that, is there another way that the planes can go around the Mountains. Does that mean more people are impacted though?

TEMPLEMAN: There have been a whole lot of suggestions put. For instance, the small community of Linden in the mid Mountains seems to be the crossing point for all the flights, day and night. Remember that these are flights 24 hours a day. And many people have suggested the planes should head a lot further west before they head north. But then of course you’re impacting on the environment. In an ideal world I think we need to listen to the experts about what is the best way to protect the natural environment – once it’s gone it can’t be replaced.

MACDONALD: So, what do they say? Because we’re going to have the airport, they’ve built the runway it’s ready to open in 2026

TEMPLEMAN: Indeed. There are experts that have put to me and have put submissions in, suggesting going around the Mountains, going at higher heights, having steeper take offs so you reach higher heights. People like our Blue Mountains Conservation Society have asked for there to be flights not below 30 thousand feet for instance. Now they’re the sorts of suggestions that need to be worked through. And it needs to be respected that this stuff matters to so many people in my community but also on a global scale in matters. And I think that these will be hard suggestions. There are some people who focused on keeping planes away from homes and they’re less concerned about the environment. And then there’s the reverse.

MACDONALD: Well can we have both, can we care for people and the environment? Because people also don’t want planes that they can almost touch above their heads when they’ve moved to this part of Sydney for it to be quieter.

TEMPLEMAN: I think the Abbott Government made a decision when it announced that Badgerys Creek was going to be the site that set a whole lot of things in train. What has been encouraging for me from a community perspective is there’s been a much broader understanding and appreciation of the impact this time around then when those decisions were made six or seven years ago. I really hope that what people in the Blue Mountains in the Hawkesbury feed back about how profound the impacts are will be listened to.

MACDONALD: You are hearing Susan Templeman, on ABC Radio Sydney, she’s the Member for Macquarie. Melissa McIntosh joins us now. She’s a Liberal and the Federal MP for Lindsay, covers the Penrith area where a lot of people have moved since the airport was announced, it also has Emu Plains, Jordan Springs and Londonderry. Good morning to you Melissa McIntosh.

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR LINDSAY, MELISSA McINTOSH: Goodmorning, thanks for having me on.

MACDONALD: A lot of people have moved in the years that the airport has been planned decided upon questioned and debated upon. How many of your residents do you know have put in submissions about the flight paths that are proposed?

McINTOSH: We’re the most impacted community in Western Sydney. Susan’s talking a lot about heritage areas, the World Heritage National Park and the environment. For me, the impacts are very much on people, their livelihoods and their lifestyles. I’ve had hundreds of emails to me right across the community, I don’t think there’s a suburb in the electorate of Lindsay that isn’t touched. From very low altitudes, 750 feet, day and night, to the High Street of Penrith and the Nepean river. And I was reflecting on Susan saying that this has been a seven year fight for her. For us, down the hill it seems like we’ve barely had seven minutes to absorb the complex EIS thousands of pages.

MACDONALD: Well it’s been three and a half months though on public displays.

McINTOSH: That’s not very long for a community that did not think that this would be happening because the 2016 EIS was very different. When you say it’s been a few months to get your head around complex information, to be able to make a submission, to even switch onto this issue. The EIS has even said that people in Luddenham, which is one of the hardest hit communities, they don’t even know what’s going on. They don’t even know the impacts and they’re the closest community. A lot more consultation needs to happen. Weve only had 4 of the 56 consultation sessions. So we’re really asking for the Albanese Labor Government, because it’s in their hands now, to consult more and to communicate more. There has been nowhere near enough communication with my community

MACDONALD: Right. So they didn’t see the letterboxing and didn’t know about the drop-in sessions, and there’s still some confusion about it.

McINTOSH: People are just switching on now. 4 out of 56 when we’re the most impacted electorate – you’d think we’d get a bit more.

MACDONALD: In terms of that though, how many people moved into the area? We’ve been talking about this Badgerys Creek airport – I think I went out there when Paul Keating turned a sod when I was a cadet – there’s been conversations about this for many years. Were people aware they’d be going under a new flight path when they moved in?

McINTOSH: When the 2016 EIS was very different. I don’t think people were aware. Certainly people have known about the possibility of an airport for some time, but it is a growing area. People are coming out to Western Sydney to build a life for their families. Housing is reasonably mor affordable although going up all of the time, and there are also benefits to the airport with jobs so people are seeing that future. But what we’re asking – we’re not silly people, but we’re certainly not flight path experts. What we’re asking is for the flight paths to be fair and balanced so we’re not bearing the brunt like we are in this current EIS.

MACDONALD: How can planes take off over some of the areas in your electorate, that’s where the actual run way is that’s so close. How else could they work?

McINTOSH: It’s not only about the take off and the landing, it’s about the choice of which root to take after that.

MACDONALD: Where to land.

McINTOSH: Just like Susan was saying in the original 2016 EIS there was a single merge point over Blaxland. And all credit to Susan and people in the local area. They jumped up and down and made a lot of noise and that was changed. But the effect of that is that my community is a lot more impacted. So there are alternatives. We know that there will be some communities that will have planes overhead that are really close to the airport. Nut communities that are further out – I can name them for you, Cambridge Park, Cambridge Garden, Llandillo that are not near the airport, they're really going to be hit hard day and night.

MACDONALD: Well you’re talking about this a lot today and your community have until midnight tonight to get their objections in. But you’re saying that yes the Blue Mountains may have got less noise, but you’re area is going to suffer more because of that.

McINTOSH: Yes, and I guess the effects of that is that people need noise mitigation on their homes as well. And that’s another area that we’re concerned about. Currently there’s only around 90 houses across the board that are going to receive any noise mitigation. There’s this arbitrary line, if you’re inside that boundary, you might potentially have noise mitigation on your house like double glazing. You could experience the same noise and you’re outside this line and you get zilch, you get nothing. Again, the policy isn’t set in stone so I’m encouraging people that are really close to the airport to have a say about noise mitigation measures on their home because that can be really hard when you’re directly under a plane taking off and landing.

MACDONALD: Thanks for your time this morning.

McINTOSH: Thank you so much.

MACDONALD: There’s Melissa Mcintosh the Federal Member for Lindsay which is the Penrith area. I want to go back to Susan Templeman in terms of the changes to the flight paths since 2016. Can we protect the people of the area and the World Heritage, and has the pain been reduced for those the Linden area and Blue Mountains at the cost of the people in Penrith.

TEMPLEMAN: The flight paths from 2016, the indicative flight paths that the government put up back then also profoundly impacted the Member for Lindsay’s electorate. It really impacted Penrith. But what’s happened since then is that there’s been no discussion about it. It’s been kept quiet. And that’s why, the previous government released no information about these flight paths. I wanted to see them years ago, and have been calling for that. So I absolutely understand why the people of Penrith are going “Well hang on we didn’t know about this.” You know, they needed a local member who was in there fighting to get that information out rather than being a cheerleader for the airport. So can we achieve everything? Well, once that concrete was laid and the runway was put down and Melissa McIntosh was out there in a hardhat helping do that, it’s very hard to see how you can suddenly completely change-

MACDONALD: It can’t be moved

TEMPLEMAN: No.

MACDONALD: Is it definitely going to be 24 hours no curfew?

TEMPLEMAN: The airport has been designed from day one to operate 24 hours, But just because the airport is operating 24 hours, doesn’t mean that people have to suffer that impact right across in one particular place. One way to do it is to share the noise much more fairly across the whole of the Sydney basin. And that’s certainly an idea that has been put forward. This is an airport that is designed to benefit Western Sydney economically, Sydney, New South Wales, and the claim is Australia. In which case, no one group should be suffering the bulk of the noise.
And the issue of fairness will be at the core of this, and how the decisions are made so there’s a fair sharing of noise for a piece of infrastructure that quite frankly is not just for Western Sydney, it is for the entire state.

MACDONALD: Right, so you want more noise over the inner parts of Sydney that would take the new planes too in that area. So everyone could be affected more, it’s share the love, share the pain.

TEMPLEMAN: Right now, we share flight paths with Sydney, the environmental groups are calling for a look at the whole of the Sydney basin rather than quarantining what’s already there and when a second runway gets put onto this site which is the plan, the first EIS indicated that that would be needed. So this is something that there are huge consequence for the whole of Sydney in one way or another. My message is to people there is a lot of information out there, there is also good summaries of information on the WSI flight paths website. So even if you just wanted to get your head around it, there are four page summaries to allow you to express some thoughts and concerns through the EIS process. We’ve got a long way to go on this, but it is a big project and it does need engagement from everyone. And there’s plenty of hours between now and midnight and I will certainly be putting the finishing touches to my rather bulky submission which tries to reflect a huge range of views across the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury. It’s easy to search for, you search for Western Sydney International Airport flight paths, but it’s wsiflightpaths.gov.au.

MACDONALD: Thanks for your time this morning.

TEMPLEMAN: Thanks Sarah.

ENDS