MEDIA RELEASE

General Aviation Industry Challenge Starts in AAT

The proceedings commenced by the Archerfield Chamber of Commerce Inc. to
set aside the Ministerial Decision of former Transport Minister Anthony
Albanese in May 2012 approving the Archerfield Airport 2011-2031 master
plan will commence its hearing trial in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal
in Brisbane today Tuesday 18th November until 26th November.

Witnesses for the Chamber will include a former Federal Minister of
Aviation Mr Peter Morris and other aviation experts, some of whom are
former Federal Government employees.

The Chamber will assert that the Department of Transport and Infrastructure
and CASA did not assess the approved Master Plan with the required detail
and technical accuracy demanded. In short the approval was granted without
having regard to current applicable legislation, the interests of the
aviation industry, the general public and the use of erroneous technical
assessments.

The Department in recent years has suffered from an absence of specialised
professionals in the aviation field with important decisions and
recommendations to the responsible Minister being taken by uninformed
bureaucrats who do not understand the industry or apply the law correctly.

Chief among these failings has been the extraordinary policy of the
Department to absolutely refuse to apply the statutory requirements of the
Airports Privatisation Act. They advise that all problems arising between
the users of airports and the lease holders, where the leaseholders breach
the Act, are commercial disputes and should be settled in the courts.

Instead of the Government applying its laws the onus is transferred to the
general community to do so. The so called “Light Hands Policy” in
relation to airports, a policy designed as a cover for bureaucratic
executive action, has no legal backing at all and has never been raised in
the Parliament.

The Department has been acting as an un-informed regulator and uniformed
protector of the public interest. It has been acting only as a post office
rather than doing its job to protect the airports and the users. The
consequences are that general aviation industries are being destroyed and
airports infrastructure including runways being downgraded or lost.

There is no or inadequate compensation to aviation businesses losing their
assets through a system of refusals to renew aviation related leases of
Commonwealth owned airport land upon which tenants paid for the buildings
and improvements. Aviation land through the airport’s master plan will be
converted to commercial and industrial sites without any control or
supervision by State planning authorities.

The full resources of Governments of all political persuasions has been
deployed to ensure the commercial  profits of the airport lease holders
are ensured,  without regard as to the loss of vital national
infrastructure or the interests of the community at large, and the
viability of general aviation businesses that try to provide services in a
competitive market environment.

The Act provides that airport lease holders must not alienate land that is
required for present and future aviation needs. The Chamber’s application
is to preserve our precious aviation infrastructure, stop new commercial
and industrial development on land that is currently being used for runways
and aviation businesses and to send a clear message to all Federal Airport
Leasing Companies that only aviation related developments on taxpayer land
in Australia will be permitted.

- END –

18th November 2014