PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, PARLIAMENT HOUSE
22 MARCH 1989
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
PM: Well I am sorry it's late but I thought as a matter of
courtesy I would come and just make a brief statement. AS
you know Mr Willis will be available in a more detailed
press conference tomorrow. Cabinet has spent now a very
considerable period of time considering this matter. It
goes without saying there were a number of complex
considerations that have had to be taken into account.
There were many of us in the Cabinet, and I include myself
in this, who started with the presumption that it would make
more economic sense to not proceed with a third runway at
Kingsford-Smith but to proceed immediately to fast-tracking.
of Badgery's Creek. I must say that the more this matter
was examined the more one became persuaded that that would
not be the appropriate economic decision or the correct
decision in terms of aviation principles. It is the fact,
and I don't disguise it, that this has been a difficult
decision to take in political terms because there is the
assertion made that the decision that we've taken which we
perceive to be in the interests of the country as a whole,
Sydney in general, may cost us some seats adjacent to the
Kingsford-Smith airport. And that was not something that
could be lightly dismissed. But nevertheless, in the
balance the majority of the Cabinet believed that this was
the correct decision to be taken. Let me say that the
interests of the people in the immediate vicinity were not
however overlooked by Cabinet in our deliberations. Indeed,
they formed a significant part of our consideration. on the
information, the best information available to us there will
in fact be a decline in the numbers of people seriously
affected, severely affected by aircraft noise from 56,200 at
present to about 35,500. That's a decline of about 37%.
That decline will occur as a result of a combination of the
new generation of quieter aircraft and the greatly reduced
usage of the east-west runway. So we were in the position
where a combination of economics, a combination of sensible
aviation principles and a consideration of a reduction of
noise levels in general in the area led to the decisions
that were taken. I repeat that hours and hours of
consideration have gone into this, it was a hard and tough
decision to take and one which I'm convinced and the
majority of my colleagues are convinced on all the evidence
is in the best interests of the nation, of Sydney, and of
the aviation and tourist industry in this country.
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JOURNALIST: Do you believe that Caucus will accept this
decision of Cabinet?
PM: Yes, I don't think it will be unanimous but I believe
the majority will.
JOURNALIST: Do you think Mr Punch should stay in the
Aviation portfolio?
PM: Let me say this about Mr Punch. You've raised him and
I'm not going to go on for a long series of questions, it's
too late for that, but it's a legitimate question. No-one
could have argued the contra case more eloquently and from
his point of view more effectively I think than did Mr
Punch. This is before he got into the Cabinet and the whole
of the Cabinet proceedings. He had a firm conviction as to
the alternative point of view. He argued that case
strenuously and I can say I believe from his point of view I
don't think he could've argued that case more effectively.
He wants to consider the position as to whether from his
point of view it's most appropriate to stay on in that
particular portfolio. I think it's reasonable that he
should consider that position and I'll have a further
discussion with him when he's ready to have that discussion.
JOURNALIST: Inaudible
PM: Well he should think about it and then he'll talk with
me. JOURNALIST: Would it be reasonable to move him off? Would
that make more sense in the circumstances
PM: It's a combination of circumstances. I think the first
thing to do is what I've said. I've had a brief discussion
with him and he understands that. He wants to think about
the position and talk to me further and I think that's a
perfectly reasonable thing to do.
JOURNALIST: Would you say this decision was taken, when you
say the majority of your colleagues agreed with you, is this
to imply that the agreement, the decision was taken without
consensus? PM: It's not only to imply, it's a matter of logic that
that conclusion must follow. But in the end this is not a
Cabinet which takes formal votes. It's clear that the
majority, and a clear majority favoured the position and
when that was clear that that was the position it didn't
take a vote, there were no hands up and that sort of thing.
JOURNALIST: Should it have taken as long as it did?
PM: -Yes of course it should. It's a matter which by any
criterion is one of the more important that Cabinet's had to
deal with. And it was one in which, let me say for the
first time any government had in fact built up a relevant
information base. Let me remind-you that the people who
were in before us had seven years in which they could've
dealt with this matter they didn't. We'd already taken a
first step in dealing with the longer term problem by making
a decision to acquire land at Badgery's. And as we came to
the point now of having to make as it were a final decision
in this matter a great deal of information had to be built
up which involved a lot of assumptions about rates of growth
of international traffic, of domestic traffic, assumptions
about possible improvements in runway productivity, possible
improvements in productivity which flow from other
management and traffic flow decisions, judgements that you
have to make about the diversion of some types of traffic or
portions of it like general aviation traffic away from
Kingsford-Smith. Now in their nature all of these issues
are extremely complex and many of them by definition can't
lend themselves to dogmatic assertions as to what the actual
factual position will be. Therefore there is room for
differences of interpretation. Now those things you simply
don't rush. You can if you want to but I think that what I
said earlier is indicative of the way in which we've gone
about this. I was one who started off with a fairly clear
presumption as to what I thought the best economics and
aviation principles would be. I became persuaded as more
information became available, as we asked more questions, as
more figures were put in front of us in response to those
questions, that initial presumption that I had changed.
JOURNALIST: Inaudible
PM: No need to be so assertive, I can hear.
JOURNALIST: In the end what was it that turned the argument
for you?
PM: It was a combination of information which together went
to the point as to when would be the most likely date at
which you would need the new facility. On the information
that one had had earlier and the assumptions one made it
looked as though what you would doing would be if you built
a third runway would be to go through all the exercise of
building it and almost as soon as you'd built that it
would've reached saturation point. That was a sort of
presumption that I and others had made on the sort of
preliminary assumptions and estimates that were available to
us. The more one looked at the evidence and got additional
information in response to questions, the more it appeared
to be the case on which we've acted that there would be a
quite significant period of time between the completion of
the third runway and when that additional facility would
reach saturation point. So when you then looked at those
considerations therefore in terms of what outlays would be
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PM ( cont): necessary now to have an accelerated
construction at Badgery's Creek and you looked at that in
discounted terms, as you have to do to make the proper
economic assessment, it became clear that you would in fact
be expending more money and considerably more money on the
immediate Badgery's alternative. That was the essence of
the change in our position. Now
JOURNALIST: So when will Badgery's Creek open and when will
the third runway open?
PM: Well, taking the third runway first, there will be an
Environmental Impact Statement and one can't be sure how
long that will take but the assessment is that taking the
period of the Environmental Impact Statement and the
construction period into account, you're looking at a period
of the order of five years for the third runway. There's no
question about that, that that could be the order of it. I
mean if your EIS was considerably shorter, then that period
of five years may be correspondingly shorter. But that
could take that sort of period of time. In other words, I
think one of the misapprehensions through a lot of this
discussion has been the assumption that as soon as Cabinet
made a decision about a third runway, hey-presto, you've got
it. You haven't, it's that sort of period of time. Now we
will be, as you will see from the decision or the press
statement that's been distributed, we will be moving to
accelerate the acquisition of land at Badgery's and we'll be
moving to the construction of a general aviation facility
there that will not take a long period of time. Then we're
also making the decision that the second stage of Badgery's
will be one which will involve a domestic and international
capacity and we want immediate work to be done on the
preparation of plans for that with the actual timing of that
second stage being one that you will make in the light of
the additional information that comes available to you as to
the way capacity is moving. Now, I'm not going to go on any
longer now, the further detailed questions you can address
to Mr Willis tomorrow morning or later this morning.
ends