Flying Dirty over Sydney Backyards

The Kurnell Deception

KSA's Fourth Runway ?

Flying Dirty Over Sydney's Backyards

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Kurnell - The Duplicity

The Howard government's duplicity has been a hallmark of the Second Airport saga. It is illustrated none better than by the events of the week before the announcement of Bankstown as the Government's preferred Second Airport site.

On Wednesday 6th December 2000, the Daily Telegraph reported a Page 1 exclusive that Cabinet deliberations were going to consider a "new" Kurnell option in the coming week. The proposal was to build an airport on the present Caltex refinery site at Kurnell, requiring relocating of the refinery. The strip would have a north-west to south-east aligned strip (so take off's to the favoured north tracked well over inner Sydney suburbs, and would clearly conflict with traffic at KSA).

Some $2 billion would be required to relocate the oil refinery and it's 600 workers (hands up who'd like an oil refinery in their backyard - they'll be queing up for that one).

The Caltex site is barely 3 km from KSA's runways, and directly in-line with them. It is barely 1.2 km wide, and it's longest diagonal just 1.8 km. That's maybe just enough for a 737-interstate or regional airstrip. But Conflict between KSA and Kurnell would seriously diminish traffic capacity, and give air traffic controllers serious headaches.

A 4 km international length runway would end on North Wanda beach, just 2 km from North Cronulla's waterfront luxury homes. To the east and North, taxiways would encroach on Botany Bay National Park, and the Captain Cook's Landing Place historic site. Barely a 100 m to the East, the sensitive Towra Point acquatic sanctuary, breeding ground to threatened migratory birds from the Northern Hemisphere, would be devastated.

Although the population density on the Kurnell peninsula is way lower than Bankstown, and residents are much further away from possible runway locations, the plan was so silly it didn't even make the 1984 Second airport feasibility studies.

Prime Minister's John Howard tried to give the plan credibility when he appeared the next day on his favorite radio station 2UE (whose star talkback hosts make a motza from endorsing Qantas and international air travel). Howard refused to rule Kurnell out of consideration.

In his back pocket, he has an airport site with land purchased, a 10 km buffer to residential areas, and approval from an EIS process.

And in the backroom, he's had bureaucrats and scholars beavering away on a plan to dump it all in Bankstown.

He wanted us to think he should seriously consider a pie-in-the-sky project on a refinery site just kilometres from valuable suburban beach-front properties, metres from important wildlife sanctuaries, and literally on-top of the historic Captain Cook landing site. And it's within an electorate held by the Liberals by a slim margin.

About the only thing that can be said in Kurnell's favour is that it provides a better residential exclusion zone than either KSA or Bankstown options (see map above). Aircraft could land and take off to the east or north east without overflying houses.

But a plan that needed $2000 million subsidy to move an oil refinery was never going to get up ahead of one that steals $600 million from working class families - at least not in a Liberal cabinet.

Kurnell was just a subterfuge, intended to create an impression that you shouldn't believe any airport announcement this government makes. A cynical way to obfuscate matters and entice voters to give it little weight when your real intentions regarding Bankstown are announced.

Write to Mr Howard and ask him to make a decision that's in all Australian's interest and fair to Sydney, not just those of the frequent flyer clubs and airline shareholders.

First published, 2000. Last revised p>Last Change: vdeck mod

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