Gold Coast Airport: Southern residents call for permanent curfew to stop freight flights during set hours
Southern Gold Coast residents want a permanent curfew at the airport which will stop all freight flights from between 11pm and 6am.
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Southern Gold Coast residents want a permanent curfew at the airport which will stop all freight flights from between 11pm and 6am.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce when last week visiting the Coast to meet with McPherson MP Karen Andrews backed a resident campaign to stop Qantas from extending a deal to have four freight flights each week from just after 5am.
Gold Coast Lifestyle Association Inc president John Hicks welcomed the announcement which backs the campaign by nine community groups but they want the Government to take it a step further.
“The task for the community, the Airport Curfew Alliance and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is only half complete," Mr Hicks told the Bulletin.
“Our attention now needs to focus on rescinding the Gold Coast Airport curfew regulation provision that allows for four air freighter movements per week during curfew hours.
“This provision was put in place 22 years ago to facilitate weekend newspaper delivery from Sydney. It ceased to be used in 2005 and was only reactivated due to COVID disruptions in 2020.”
Mr Hicks said Mr Joyce’s decision to refuse Qantas a long-term permission for in-curfew freight flights was recognition that such an approval undermines the intent of the long-standing airport curfew.
“It also affirms that this regulation provision is outdated and no longer fit-for-purpose. It needs to be removed,” he said.
“We call on the Deputy Prime Minister to carry through and complete this important task for the community.”
A packed Tugun Progress Association Hall meeting on February 15 saw residents voting to protect the curfew, calling on the government to amend regulations “to prohibit air freighter movements within curfew”.
“We make this call emphasising there are 17 hours available each day outside curfew for air freighter operations at Gold Coast Airport,” Mr Hicks said.
McPherson Labor candidate Carl Ungerer said thousands of residents had a win with curfew exemptions not being extended beyond April but he supports all flights being cancelled outside of curfew hours.
“This is a good win for the southern Gold Coast community. But this is just a short term political fix because a federal election is around the corner,” Mr Ungerer said.
“If Barnaby and Karen Andrews were really serious about protecting the community from aircraft noise throughout the night, they would immediately remove the exemption regulation and announce a permanent curfew.
“Otherwise every time an airline applies for a curfew exemption in the future, the community will need to rally to fight it.”
Decision revealed in controversial flight curfew battle - February 17
Southern Gold Coasters have won their campaign to protect the flight curfew at the airport.
Visiting the Gold Coast on Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and McPherson MP Karen Andrews backed residents who fought to prevent planes from departing or landing between 11pm and 6am at Gold Coast Airport in Coolangatta.
Qantas had sought to extend the Covid-inspired deal that allows it to have four freight services a week – just after 5am on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday – to “deliver essential items”. It expires on April 1.
In February, Mr Joyce conceded freight planes were allowed to break curfew at the airport as a favour during tight Covid conditions, and said he was “mindful” of the plight of residents.
“(Ms Andrews) came and saw me and said, ‘I’ve had it with these four flights that turn up between 11 and 6, can you stop it?’,” Mr Barnaby said on Wednesday.
“And we stopped it.
“It’s a response to the community. The community said it wasn’t the plan they had, people (at that time) generally prefer to be asleep.
“We had to make an exemption in the past because of Covid but people are moving on, other things are happening. We’ve got to go back to the way it was.”
Ms Andrews said she had not spoken to community groups before Wednesday’s announcement.
“The first thing I needed was to make the announcement,” she said. “My office will then make sure everyone who put in a submission is advised they have been successful.”
Key community lobbying group The Airport Alliance said the decision was a “terrific win for the local community, and a great result for all of those who spoke up.
“There were dozens of volunteers helping organise the community response over a hundred people that turned out for the community meeting, several hundred who took the time to complete a submission and thousands who signed a petition.
“This is a great step — but the fight is not over yet. There has been no announcement to change the regulations, which means we will have to keep having this fight every time an airline or large corporation applies for a curfew exemption.”
FEB 17, 2022:
RESIDENTS fear the Gold Coast Airport curfew is in danger. Will it be a departmental bureaucrat or a politician who makes the call on this? Remember, at play is a federal poll.
A lot of the fog in this airport debate was cleared with excellent speakers and presentations at a packed public meeting in the Tom Atkin Hall at Tugun on Tuesday night.
We learned the Friends of Currumbin in 1997 began campaigning for an 11pm to 6am curfew. It was introduced two years later. When the airport was privatised, the arrangement was in place.
Four regular freight flights were allowed on Saturday and Sundays of what residents called the “paper planes” bringing in the then heavy Sydney weekend newspapers.
By 2004 the paper planes were going to Ballina – a year later only small corporate flights and emergency transports flew during the curfew.
This remained the flight pattern at night until October 2020 when Qantas negotiated what residents believed would be a short-term arrangement for four freight flights arriving at 5.05am on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Only this week residents told your columnist planes were overhead just after 4.45am.
They were unimpressed at not being consulted but acknowledged this was Covid, border restrictions would continue and they thought these were essential medical items.
Qantas and Australia Post is seeking its deal, which finishes on April 1, to be extended until December.
Residents fear it will become permanent. They see potential storage areas across the border at the old drive-in and nursery site.
A federal department bureaucrat responding to a resident group wrote “there is no consideration being made to allow permanent freight movements inside the curfew period”.
“The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications is responsible for making decisions on requests for permits under the regulations and it is not a decision for the Federal Transport Minister or Australian government.”
At the hall packed with more than 100 residents, McPherson Labor candidate Carl Ungerer asked a critical question.
He strongly supports the campaign and call for everyone to make submissions by February 25.
“But the department can’t be the decision-maker, it has to be the Minister, right?,” he said.
“So therefore (Deputy Prime Minister) Barnaby Joyce is the decision-maker in this. I think the pressure has to come on Barnaby to make the decision.
“We can lobby the department all we like (to remove the freight flight allowances). The fact is the decision maker will be Barnaby Joyce and it is him we should be directing our attention and our views.”
Former Currumbin MP Jann Stuckey, now with the Friends of Currumbin and a key player in airport talks, said the area was represented by Karen Andrews who was a “senior member in Cabinet who actually does have a say and sway”.
Ms Andrews supported the residents but the department, through its bureaucrats, “might want to run the show”.
“But I can tell you when there’s a federal election just sniffing in the wind, those ministers can tick and flick pretty much anything they want,” Ms Stuckey said.
So Labor, courtesy of Qantas, has its first election stoush taking off in the southern federal electorate of McPherson.
Our federal MPs are not often in the spotlight, but Ms Andrews, courtesy of Mr Ungerer, is here. She and southern Coast residents will emerge either a winner or loser.
War waged against major airline for outside curfew flights plan
February 16, 2022
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce concedes freight planes were allowed to break curfew at Gold Coast Airport as a favour during tight Covid conditions, and says he is “mindful” of the plight of residents.
Locals have waged a war against Qantas’s pitch to extend its four freight flights a week from April 1 to the end of the year.
They are concerned the number of flights will double and become permanent.
A spokesperson for Australia’s second most powerful man told the Bulletin: “Qantas’s current exemption was granted under exceptional circumstances at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure essential freight continued to be delivered to the region.”
“With restrictions easing and borders reopening, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications will consider the request for extension in the context of the current circumstances,” it read.
“The government is mindful of the impact flights during the curfew can have on residents and living standards.”
It is the second time in seven years the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development has got involved in an aviation spat on the Gold Coast.
In 2015, he told the two dogs owned by Hollywood couple Johnny Depp and Amber Heard to “bugger off back to the United States” after they were smuggled into the country without proper declaration.
More than 100 residents attended a public meeting at the Tom Atkin Hall at Tugun on Tuesday night to support the curfew, where they backed a strong-worded resolution to be sent to Mr Joyce.
They demanded Mr Joyce refuse any permissions for Qantas or other operators after April 1 for air freighter movements within the curfew – and requested curfew regulations be amended to prohibit future air freighter movements between 11pm-6am.
Department officers are talking to community leaders after Qantas requested its exemption to operate up to four freight flights per week during curfew be extended.
Qantas wants to extend the deal from April 1 to December. However, residents fear it would become permanent and flight activity would double.
An 800-signed petition opposed to changing the curfew has been sent to the department. The submission deadline is February 25.
Southern Coast MPs and councillors back the residents in statements to community leaders.
McPherson MP Karen Andrews said she had made her opposition to the freight permit clear to colleagues.
“But I am also calling on Qantas to make sure that they reschedule that flight so that they’re not looking for an extension of that exemption. And, in any case, I’m going to be opposing it,” she said.
Area councillor Gail O’Neill said extending the curfew dispensation permanently would not be tolerated by residents.
“The curfew was set up to protect residents’ amenity and health and I believe this will be compromised if a permanent extension is approved,” she said.
Currumbin MP Laura Gerber told community leaders she had asked Qantas to reconsider
their application.
“And I have asked the Minister to decline to support any permanent application from Qantas for freight flights into the Gold Coast inside the curfew period,” she said.
Richmond MP Justine Elliott predicts any changes to freight permits will be “the thin edge of the wedge”.
“It will lead to more flights over our homes, both in my electorate in northern New South
Wales and on the Gold Coast. We will have more planes landing and taking off within curfew – and this would be devastating for locals in our region,” she said.
Tweed MP Geoff Provest does not believe the extension of freight flights during curfew hours was warranted, and had not been convinced by the proposal put by Qantas and Australia Post.
“If regular deliveries are urgent, Brisbane Airport is only 1.5 hours away and is operational 24 hours per day,” he said.
How residents will fight contentious airport curfew
February 15: Almost 800 residents have lodged complaints with the federal government about the Gold Coast airport curfew being broken as protesters ramp up their campaign.
Organisers were preparing for about 100 residents to pack the Tom Atkin Hall at Tugun on Tuesday night as the first public meeting was held to protect the 11pm to 6am flight curfew.
They say more than 770 residents have signed a pro-forma petition opposed to a potential increase to 31 aircraft movements during the curfew each month, revealed earlier this month in a Bulletin report. The public meeting was discuss a “call to action”.
A federal department says Qantas only wants the arrangement extended to December but residents maintain they have advice in “black and white” from the authorities pointing to it being permanent.
A Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications officer told residents: “The request from Qantas is a time limited proposal (to 31 December 2022) and there is no consideration being made to allow permanent freight movements inside the curfew period.
“The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications is responsible for making decisions on requests for permits under the regulations and it is not a decision for the Federal Transport Minister or (federal government).”
The Department was seeking submissions so it “can fully understand the potential benefits to the Gold Coast and Tweed Heads communities of having an efficient overnight freight service compared to the noise impacts”.
“There are only the four flights per week currently operating under the permit and the proposal is to continue this number of flights,” the officer said.
But Lindy Smith, the president of the Tweed District Residents and Ratepayers Association. told the officer an email sent out by the Department confirms “Qantas and Australia Post Group have asked for consideration of an application for permanent freight operations”.
The Department’s own document on the Gold Coast airport curfew states “on average there are 15 aircraft movements per month during curfew”.
“An approval of the Qantas four freight movements during curfew per week will equate to an average of 31 aircraft movements per month during curfew — hence, this is double the aircraft movements per month during curfew,” Ms Smith said.
“I ask that this significant public interest matter and the many issues please be considered equitably with full and open transparency.”
Residents in their submissions asked that feasible alternatives exist for commercial freight operators and operators could reorganise schedules to fit within the non-curfew times of 17 hours available each day.
“They can fly into the Brisbane Airport — 24/7, no curfew — and use road transport,” the resident petition says.
Originally published as Gold Coast Airport: Southern residents call for permanent curfew to stop freight flights during set hours
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