Badgerys Creek airport: Labor questions funding brawl

Labor has urged the Turnbull government to negotiate the $6bn Sydney airport project “quietly and professionally”.

Labor has demanded a “please explain” about an escalating brawl over Badgerys Creek airport and urged the Turnbull government to negotiate the major project “quietly and professionally” rather than via a “screaming match” in the press.

Amid division within Labor’s ranks over support for the city’s second airport, opposition trade and investment spokesman Jason Clare, who is also a southwestern Sydney MP, said the party continued to back the project but had some “common sense” suggestions.

His comments come as Australia’s biggest airport operator was given an ultimatum that would force it to spend up to $6 billion to build the airport at Badgerys Creek after the Turnbull government surprised the company two months ago by withdrawing an offer of a $1bn concessional loan.

A row over the $1bn loan offer, revealed to The Australian yesterday, threatens to drag out a decision on the nation’s next major airport as the government vows to go it alone if the Sydney Airport Corporation refuses to submit to the tough new terms on building the mammoth project.

“We need an explanation from the government about what’s going on? The front page of the newspapers tell us there’s a spat between the federal government and Sydney Airport Corporation about whether they should be receiving a concessional loan or not,” Mr Clare told Sky News in reference to The Australian’s report.

Opposition trade and investment spokesman Jason Clare.

Labor says a rail link between Sydney and Badgerys Creek should be operating “from day one” and has called for no-fly zones over populated parts of western Sydney at night.

But Mr Clare said he believed there was a “real opportunity” to create additional jobs not only at the airport but around the local area.

“Where you can get high-tech, high-skilled, high-paid white collar jobs. They’re the sorts of things I want to see in southwest Sydney, not just in the inner-city or the inner parts of Sydney or northwest parts of Sydney,” he said.

“What worries me is that instead of having a government and a major Australian company negotiating the terms of the construction of the airport in good faith, quietly and professional, we’ve got a screaming match on the front page of the newspaper today. That doesn’t bode very well.”

The government is demanding a decision by May on whether Sydney Airport will accept the offer to build and operate the Badgerys Creek project, sparking an argument over the deadline and fuelling talk of legal disputes that could run for years and delay the critical infrastructure project.

Sydney Airport has warned the government’s recent change in approach made the development “a challenging investment proposition” but government frontbencher Karen Andrews said that was “not an unexpected response” from the organisation as it weighs up whether to proceed with the project.

“Let’s put this it into some perspective: the western Sydney airport has been on the book for many decades as something that needed to proceed. The Turnbull government is getting on to deliver that,” she told Sky News.

“We have made it clear to the Sydney Airport group what the terms would be for them to develop and to operate western Sydney airport. The ball is now in their court.

“We’ve also made it very clear that there are other options but Sydney Airport group does have the right of first refusal.”