‘We live in a modern city’: Flight noise is part and parcel

Flight noise is part and parcel of living in a big city and as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk rightly points out, for travel prices to come down we need to expand our airport.

For once I have to agree with Annastacia Palaszczuk. Flight noise is part and parcel of living in a big city.

And it’s my view that if the Greens, a party known for putting emotions before economics, wants to curb the number of flights from Brisbane Airport, then it’s way more off base than usual.

As the Premier said on Thursday: “We live in a modern city, there’s always going to be noise. Now there’s a second runway we’re going to see more airline traffic and if you want
to see the cost of airline tickets come down, we need to allow more capacity in.”

Ms Palaszczuk also vowed to “definitely not” do a deal with the Greens if Labor failed to secure a majority at next year’s state election.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Let’s wait and see if that holds true, given her party cannot risk losing more seats if it wants to stay in power.

The Premier, who has been clear about leading Labor to the 2024 election despite jostling by several underlings to lay claim to her job while she was swanning around Italy recently, was speaking up in apparent support of one of those underlings, Deputy Premier Steven Miles.

Mr Miles, who is known for making snippy, snide and ill-judged remarks on a variety of issues, said earlier that the Greens’ bid to impose a curfew and flight caps at Brisbane Airport was because the Greens was “a party of wealthy inner-city elites”.

Another classic own goal, hence the rushing to his defence by the party leader.

Brisbane-based Greens and federal MPs Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Max Chandler-Mather and Stephen Bates are championing a bill to introduce hourly flight caps and a late night curfew at the airport for non-emergency flights.

That’s their right, but what is so wrong is Mr Miles sledging people who live in Hamilton, Ascot and Hendra and are most predominantly under the flight path as “elitist”.

Mr Miles told an aviation industry conference he “couldn’t think of anything more hypocritical than the Greens political party’s campaign against the airport”.

A Jetstar plane flying over Hamilton Hill heading towards Brisbane Airport. Flight path.

“The blokes (with no acknowledgment of Ms Watson-Brown, who is not a bloke) running this campaign are just about the most frequent travellers from Brisbane Airport to their engagements on (ABC show) Q+A and down to Canberra for the parliament,” he said.

“What they’re saying is that planes shouldn’t fly over the homes of wealthy inner-city elites, they should only fly over the homes of working people. And that only wealthy inner-city elites should be able to afford to fly, but working people shouldn’t be able to afford to fly.”

Sorry? Has the Greens party discriminated against working people? No.

Certainly, some residents under the Brisbane Airport flight path have buckets of money (many having worked hard for it too) but a good many others don’t.

Besides, what business is it of Steven Miles?

The bill, to be debated in federal parliament next month, is tipped to cost Queensland’s economy $3 billion a year if it gets up.

Ms Watson-Brown, a celebrated architect who lives in St Lucia, has proposed the diversion of planes to Toowoomba’s Wellcamp Airport and that travellers be put on high-speed trains to Brisbane.

I can’t see in what lifetime punters would go for that, but credit to her for trying to make use of Wellcamp and potentially reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Mr Miles’ comments are yet another example of why, if this “bloke” was ever tasked with running this state as premier, we should all be very worried.

No diplomacy, no facts, no clue.

Mr Miles could learn from Adrian Schrinner, unlikely given the Brisbane Lord Mayor is Liberal.

At the same conference at which Mr Miles blasted “inner city elites”,
Cr Schrinner diplomatically spoke of the importance of the airport to the city and that ideas that sound good – aka the Greens’ proposal – may not achieve desired outcomes.

He said the Greens’ idea was simplistic and would increase travel costs, and Brisbane City Council received far more complaints about barking dogs, loud parties and airconditioners than airport noise.

Living in a large city meant managing impacts and noise, and there were ways to do this other than blunt instruments like caps and curfews.

On that, the Lord Mayor and Premier can agree. I join them.

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