Mr FAHEY (Finance and Administration) (4:40 PM) —I listened with great interest to the contribution made by the mover of the motion, the honourable member for Throsby. I find it a little sad that, after all these years of serving on the Public Works Committee, which I understand he has contributed to significantly over those years, he should get this particular matter so wrong. I say that in this context. In the course of his remarks, he made reference to the fact that Sydney airport is controversial. Yes, it is controversial. It is controversial because there is a massive amount of building and construction that has been going on in recent times. In the course of that building and construction, there has been a fair degree of inconvenience suffered by the travelling public.

The complaints that I get in respect of that are: `When is Sydney Airport Corporation going to finish this work off and make it more convenient? When is there going to be proper access to the taxis? When are you going to be able to get to the car park without getting wet?' The other controversy, which I think was what the honourable member for Throsby was referring to, has absolutely nothing to do with the Sydney Airport Corporation. It is what occurs in the context of flight paths and planes coming in and going on and where they fly over. All honourable members have heard a fair bit about that over the years. If you know anything about Sydney, you know a lot about flight paths. That controversy has absolutely nothing to do with the Sydney Airport Corporation.

He went on to say that here we have $1.5 billion shovelled into shonky deals. I point out to the honourable member for Throsby that all of the works that are being conducted at the present time—that is, the construction works—were approved when Sydney airport was under the umbrella of the Federal Airports Corporation. In the course of putting those proposals for construction work on the international and domestic terminals—the car park and the new bridge that is going over the Georges River—all of that was referred by the Federal Airports Corporation to the Public Works Committee. And it was scrutinised and approved by the honourable member for Throsby and his colleagues.

That proceeded to a point where government determined last year that it needed to corporatise the operation of Sydney airport to ensure that it was placed on a similar footing to the airports that had been sold. The honourable member for Throsby indicated to us that he did not mind that the airports that were sold were not subjected to the Public Works Committee and that they should deal with their construction works and any building programs in a normal, corporate fashion.

But he wants to put the government's instrumentality that has been corporatised into a separate category. He wants them to be subjected in a way in which the competitors at Melbourne, Brisbane and even Canberra are not subjected. He thinks that is appropriate. So he is worried about the shonky shovelling of $1.5 billion into a construction program at Sydney airport, which was scrutinised and approved—it certainly was not knocked over by the Public Works Committee—when the Federal Airports Corporation had the umbrella management of that airport, along with many others. On this occasion they said that, because there has been a change, it is nothing to do with the building program that is there. He wants to say, `This can't happen. This has got to be stopped.'

This was done in a way which is very similar to what Labor did all of these years. Where were you, honourable member for Throsby, when the former government sought to exempt Aerospace Technologies of Australia Ltd; when it sought to exempt the Australian Canned Fruits Corporation; when it sought to exempt the Australian Industry Development Corporation? Multibillions of dollars were in that particular industry bank. Where were you when the former government gave an exemption to the Australian National Railways Corporation? I would have thought the Railways Corporation had a reasonable public works type program. There is a fair bit of construction involved in railways.

Where were you when the former government gave an exemption to the forerunner of that great and wonderful company Telstra, which is rapidly progressing in the services it is providing to all Australians at the present time? It was not a small capital works program when it was Telecom. It was not a small capital public works program when it was the old post and telecommunications organisation. The Labor government gave an exemption then.

Where was the honourable member for Throsby when an exemption was given to the Pipeline Authority? I would have thought the Pipeline Authority could do a bit of construction and get the gas from the Cooper Basin to the people on the eastern seaboard, et cetera. I could go through a list of exemptions a mile long where a legitimate exercise of section 6 of the Public Works Committee Act was undertaken by the then minister of the day for purposes of putting those operations on a proper corporate footing. That is what this government has done. I assure you that I knew about it fully and I fully supported it, despite your trying to make allowances for me—I appreciate that you really did want to be nice to me in saying that I was probably snowed or too busy to know about it.

The government passed legislation—I think the Airports Act was supported by Labor—that provided a mechanism for all airports, including Sydney airport, to have any building and construction program checked through under provisions which are pretty onerous. The provisions require public comment; they require a draft plan to be prepared; they require a building supervisor to ensure that all of those aspects are looked at thoroughly; they require consultations with state and territory governments and with the local government body. None of those provisions are there currently.

They were not there when your committee looked at the Federal Airports Corporation. Consultation with local government or with any other person—with the whole of the community—or consultation with an airline or other user of an airport are provisions that are contained in the Airports Act. Then the draft has to be approved by the minister and then there is a requirement for it to be properly looked at. This is an extremely onerous process.

In seeking to have this exemption thrown out, the honourable member for Throsby wants the Sydney Airport Corporation Ltd to be subjected to all of the things that apply to Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Coolangatta, Townsville and all those other airports that the government sold. He wants the Airports Act and its provisions to apply to all those airports and to Sydney Airport Corporation, because that is the way it has been set up, and as well he wants the Public Works Committee to have a go. It has already had a go, and we all know that Sydney airport is going to be sold.

It was going to be sold by the Labor Party, and we have never made any bones about the fact that, as a government, at the appropriate time we will also move to sell. That will be after the noise abatement program—which, if not complete, is almost complete—and insulation of homes and public buildings around Mascot airport has been completed and a decision made on the second Sydney airport. And that has its own controversies attached to it. Those decisions have to be taken, and then the intention is to sell the airport. That is what Labor was proposing and made some moves to do just that.

In that context, you are saying that in the period before it is sold you want doubly onerous provisions put on this corporate body under the Corporations Law: to be required to be out there in a competitive marketplace, to be subjected to all of the provisions of the Corporations Law, and to be required to trade on a level playing field. All of those provisions are there and yet you say, `No, we want to put extra provisions and extra burdens on them.' Why didn't you do that to Telstra? Why didn't you do it to the Commonwealth Bank? Why didn't you do it to the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation and the Health Insurance Commission? Why didn't you do it to the Australian Industry Development Corporation or the Pipeline Authority? Why didn't you do it to all of those bodies that you exempted in your time in government? Because you exercised an appropriate operation of law and an appropriate operation of government by exempting them in those circumstances, and yet you see this as the exception. It simply does not make sense. Let me address some of the other issues—so they do not hang there—about the $1.45 billion that has been poured into this, which is all so shonky.

Mr Hollis interjecting—

Mr FAHEY —As anyone who passes through Sydney airport would see—particularly in the international terminal—the program has given a massive upgrade and improvement. Yes, the Olympics are coming and, yes, we want it fully operational—that program is quite extensive. It relates to a number of areas, including the redevelopment of the international freight areas. It relates to the aprons. It relates to the runways, and you will see the bulldozers and the various other pieces of heavy equipment that are out there at the present time. I mentioned the bridge, the car parks and the elevated roadways around the domestic terminal—they account for the best part of $700 million. The other $750 million was simply, in the corporatised fashion, a return of the taxpayers' investment in that airport—that is, a cash payment to the Commonwealth on behalf of the taxpayers for all that the Commonwealth has put into that airport over the years.

We hear about them going broke and us picking up the pieces. I have to say to you that we now have a commitment, with $700 million going to improving and upgrading the asset. That is the commitment there. There is another $750 million coming back to the taxpayers of Australia for the money that they put in previously. The last valuation of Sydney airport I recall seeing was somewhere in the vicinity of $4 billion, so there is a reasonable debt to equity level. If you look at the value of the first three airports that were sold, the taxpayers got a return of something like $3.3 billion, so I think it is a reasonable sort of approach.

There is very much a business like approach to the operation of that airport—not the take-offs and the landings and the flight paths and the control towers, which Sydney Airport Corporation does not control—and to the provision of services inside the terminal. Whether it be the retail outlets or other services, I can say that there is a massive amount of work going on which I inspected just before Christmas. It would be well worth while for all honourable members who are interested to have a look, and I would be happy to arrange it. The work is about such things as the baggage underneath, about the number of windows for people to get their tickets checked through and for their baggage over the counter. All of it is to ensure that there is an efficient operation in the lead-up to the Olympics.

So what we see here is a rather silly approach to set aside something that successive governments have done over a number of years. In that context, as I say, the scrutiny is quite considerable. Let me just say that, in terms of what is the management, there is a board. That board of course must report to the minister—in this case as the shareholding minister, to me. How does the parliament get scrutiny? Ministers of the Crown, as the honourable members opposite would know, are always accountable to the parliament for any matter that might be raised in here or through any of the other processes of parliament, and I accept that responsibility.

There are times, I have to say, where I would be delighted to see the Public Works Committee take a good look at some of the areas of government, and I am happy to talk to the honourable members about that at some point in time. But in this case, please, put this company on the same footing as the other airports, its competitors. Do what successive governments have done: give them the opportunity that the Corporations Law is designed for in allowing them to trade profitably, to put a return into the taxpayers and to provide that service in the most efficient possible way in terms of the improvements that that $700 million is going into.

How is it controlled? The bulk of the construction is fixed lump-sum contracts. You would probably be aware of this from the process of examining it in the days when the Federal Airports Corporation had control of it. There are bonuses for early completion—there is nothing unusual about that. If we can get them there sooner rather than later, and have the operation going more efficiently sooner rather than later, with the opportunity to trade better, that is what we would want. There are liquidated damages for late completion. That is the protection that has been built in to it.

There is a project manager and audits that are being independently conducted on the various stages of progress of the construction projects, and that audit has been conducted by Findlay Consultants on a quarterly basis. They report their findings to the board and the board reports to me.

So there is a pretty fair mechanism there; it is called the Airports Act. It is probably more onerous than anything that the Public Works Committee was capable of injecting into this particular area because of the strict liability that attaches to it. That puts Sydney airport on the same basis as all the other airports in Australia which it must compete against. What we have here is, sadly, I think, a complete misunderstanding, despite the years of service by the honourable member for Throsby. There is no need in these circumstances for this to occur. The controls are in place. (Time expired)