Labor's plumbing the depths

THE Federal Labor Party seems to have learnt nothing about the politics of airports.

This despite the ALP's experiences - including the resignation of the Hawke government's transport minister Gary Punch in 1989 over Sydney Airport's third runway. Punch held the seat of Barton, to the west of Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport, and quit to save the seat for Labor when it was under attack over the increased noise threat the third runway posed. Today that seat is held by Attorney-General Robert McClelland, but Grayndler, another Labor seat to the north of the airport, is held by the current Federal Transport Minister and party wheeler-dealer Anthony Albanese. Though known to those within the political realm by the affectionate diminutive Albo, he is a tough customer. He is however already running up against other tough characters as he attempts to tackle the problems incurred during the necessary and overdue expansion of Sydney Airport's runways to meet the needs of new generation aircraft. Explosively, Albo claimed that the Sydney Airports Corporation had held off on starting the runway lengthening to assist the Coalition government's election chances last year. There is zero evidence to support this claim, but it is typical of Albanese to shoot from the lip when confronted with an unpleasant reality. What has been exposed is not political chicanery on the part of Sydney Airports Corporation in support of the former Coalition government but the reality that Albanese has a major conflict of interest as a local member and the minister in charge of the major piece of transport infrastructure in his immediate neighbourhood. Punch quit, but Albo is fighting on. As it happens, the work on the runways has been scheduled and carried out to plan over four years - and is due to finish later this year. The biggest and most expensive component of the upgrade, the extension of the East-West runway, has been left until last. Albanese wants work on this portion accelerated and has made his demands clear to the airport operators. That's all fine and dandy, but it's not the Federal Government nor the ALP which is bankrolling the construction. It's the Airports Corporation, and it will in turn raise the money from its principal clients - the airlines. Whether they will like to pay more on top of the estimate agreed to in order to placate Albo and his constituents is another matter. Consider it extremely unlikely that they will pay up without some grumbling. As it happens, the airport has grown with the growth of the aviation industry. This is something which seems to have escaped Albo and his pals, despite their predilection for global tours, and it is a fairly safe bet that it will continue to grow into the future. Holding up the upgrade to a certain extent are three factors: the M5, a series of high voltage power cables and ... wait for it ... a heritage-listed sewer which runs at the Cook's River end of the East-West runway. Ahem. Have any readers ever visited this heritage site? How many of you have jumped in the family car and taken the kids out to view this historic relic? Are there any who have taken their beloved to sit and canoodle as they gaze upon our sewerage antiquity, serenaded by the thrusting jets landing and taking off? One can only suggest that those responsible for listing this serene piece of plumbing were also on board when Justice Marcus Einfeld was promoted to National Living Treasure status by the National Trust and the Sydney Moaning Herald. Nevertheless, heritage-listed it is, and it runs unseen but not necessarily unloved below metres of concrete, a valuable piece of the nation's history and a treasured monument to our ageing infrastructure. Some of the Rudd Labor Government's better haters, and they're pretty damn good at it, have been enjoying the knowledge that the construction work has meant more aircraft have had to be diverted over the Liberal seats of Wentworth, held by Malcolm Turnbull, and North Sydney, held by the jovial Joe Hockey. What they fail to realise is that the good citizens in these electorates are also more likely to own shares in Macquarie Bank, the ultimate owner of the Sydney Airport Corporation. One imagines they are therefore not particularly bothered by the sound of the jets roaring overhead. Indeed, one Eastern Suburbs resident living beneath the flight path said the increased aircraft noise was as sweet to his ears as the constant ring of the cash registers to retailers during the Boxing Day sales. Badgery's Creek is still out there as a third airport option, should the Federal Government be so minded, but given the mess its vacillations over such development caused the last time Labor was in office, it seems unlikely that the revolutionary Ruddites will revisit that heritage tangle. Far safer to stick with the listed sewer, which, while still a troublesome beast, is at least underground and out of sight.