Mrs CROSIO (4:41 PM) —Today may well be the last opportunity I have to speak on the Badgerys Creek airport proposal before this government makes its final decision on the matter. Whether the government declares its intentions within the next week or two or holds off announcing its decision until after the New South Wales local government poll on 11 September, I would like to restate my position on this project and make some important points for the record.

Members would know that I have had a long history of opposition to the Badgerys Creek airport proposal. When the idea of an airport at Badgerys Creek was first raised in 1986, I was a minister in the state Labor government led by Neville Wran. I have been a vocal opponent of an international airport at Badgerys Creek since that time.

After I was elected as the member for Prospect in 1990, I was the first MP to speak out against the Badgerys Creek development in federal parliament. I have spoken in the federal parliament on the proposed Badgerys Creek development and issues related to the project on 29 occasions since 1994. Today's speech will make it the 30th occasion. I have placed 53 questions on notice on Badgerys Creek and issues related to the project in the federal parliament since late 1996.

Along with other Western Sydney MPs, I currently have a private member's motion before the parliament concerning the devastating impact an international airport at Badgerys Creek would have on all of the people living in Western Sydney. I have made hundreds of representations on behalf of my constituents and community groups in regard to Badgerys Creek—to the ministers for transport and the environment and to the prime ministers in both the former Labor and the current coalition governments. Similarly, I have made many representations on behalf of constituents and community groups to the shadow ministers for transport and the environment and the Leader of the Opposition on the same subject. I have repeatedly letterboxed every household in my electorate with information and updates on the anti-Badgerys Creek campaign.

I have facilitated countless meetings between representatives of local government and anti-airport community groups with former Labor government ministers and shadow opposition ministers, including the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Beazley, on Badgerys Creek. I have repeatedly opened my office in Parliament House to representatives of local government and anti-airport community organisations when they were in Canberra to lobby ministers and shadow ministers against Badgerys Creek. I provide that short synopsis on what I would like to say to reiterate again where I stand.

At the same time, I have taken great pains to not just be a negative campaigner against an international airport at Badgerys Creek. The record will also show that I was one of the first people to advocate moving the proposed development outside the Sydney basin and linking it to the city with an efficient rapid transit system, or more particularly the proposed Sydney to Canberra very fast train. I have provided strong assistance to Goulburn City Council in its campaign to have a renewed EIS carried out on its Gundary Plains proposal—an EIS that considers the airport in the light of it being linked to the Sydney-Canberra very fast train.

I make these points not because I am wanting a pat on the back but because I want to affirm to the House the depth and intensity of my opposition to the Badgerys Creek airport. I am certainly no `bandwagon jumper' when it comes to the anti-Badgerys Creek campaign. My concerns in regard to the airport are very deep-seated and strongly felt. The concerns of my fellow residents in Western Sydney are just as keenly held.

I have arrived at my opposition after long consideration of the issues and facts. Throughout this entire debate I have strongly resented—and I know many other people who hold a similar position on Badgerys Creek airport feel the same—having my opposition to the project portrayed by its supporters as having been motivated by `not in my backyard' self-interest. Unfortunately, I have found that the majority of the ugly self-interest in this debate has come from the proponents of the development. Their battle cry has been to build Badgerys Creek and the rest be damned. Their solution to Sydney's airport crisis has been to take the noise and environmental problems of Kingsford Smith airport and to visit them upon the people of Western Sydney. I once again reject this argument wholeheartedly.

As opponents of Badgerys Creek airport we have never argued that the problems facing inner city residents due to aircraft noise are not real and are not, in some cases, very severe. We have shown that understanding. We want to arrive at a solution that alleviates their distress. We have merely asked for a similar level of understanding to be shown to Western Sydney residents who do not want to suffer the same fate. Unfortunately, on the whole, we have not had the same level of courtesy extended to us. As the Sydney Morning Herald said in its editorial on the subject last week:

Politicians in the eastern and northern suburbs of Sydney . . . have been determined to placate voters in their areas by pushing for a second airport. And where should it be sited? Anywhere for these politicians.

Proponents of the Badgerys Creek airport clutch the project's EIS to their hearts as if it were the answer to all of their prayers. But if they were honest with themselves and the public they would admit that for every question the study attempts to address there are many more that remain unanswered.

For years we have been asking the Commonwealth to conduct an in-depth study of whether building a second international airport outside the Sydney basin and serving it with a rapid transit system is feasible. These calls have been rejected out of hand. We do not know whether such a development could succeed. I think it is a tragedy that we may proceed with building a monstrosity like Badgerys Creek airport without even carrying out a thorough examination of such a proposal. We also have no idea as to what extent a very fast train between Sydney, Canberra and then on to Melbourne would reduce air traffic at Kingsford Smith and cancel the need to build a second airport at all. Indeed, the actual need for a second Sydney airport is one of the great unanswered questions of this whole debate. It has never been adequately addressed.

Pro-Badgerys Creek agitators have certainly never mounted an effective, convincing argument in this regard. Instead, they have attempted to win their case by resorting to hysteria and shouting the loudest like spoiled children. Now many of them are resorting to blackmail and threats. They say that if Badgerys Creek airport is not built forthwith then they will blockade Kingsford Smith during the Olympics and make it impossible for people to either get in or out of that facility. I think the people associated with such threats should be ashamed of themselves. The EIS states:

An airport with an annual capacity of 30 million passengers might not be required until much later, possibly about 2030.

With advances in air transport, the development of other transport options and the more effective management of Kingsford Smith airport, that need might never even arise. Indeed, the Sydney Airports Corporation and the Charles Sturt University's Western Research Institute have said that in the medium term the best option for Sydney's aviation woes is the better management of Kingsford Smith, not rushing headlong into building Badgerys Creek at all. And yet here we are, possibly just a few days away from the government announcing the go-ahead for Badgerys Creek airport. What madness!

Without a doubt the slouch towards building Sydney's second airport has been unnecessarily long, ill planned, inept, mismanaged and a sorry saga of the highest order. I am the first to agree with such an observation. But the level of dithering and the need for a solution to Sydney's airport problems is not reason enough to proceed with spending over $5 billion on the Badgerys Creek development and another $4 billion on the infrastructure when there still exists serious questions regarding the environmental and social consequences of building the airport, the economic viability of the project, and indeed the necessity of beginning such a huge project at all.

Badgerys Creek airport should not be built simply because one side of the argument shouted the loudest; neither should it be rejected on the same grounds. The proposal to build Badgerys Creek airport should be rejected because of the lack of cold, hard answers to some of the most fundamental questions that still exist about the project. In closing, let me quote from the editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald once again. It states:

The proposal before the Federal Cabinet that a second airport be built at Badgerys Creek should be rejected. The push for a second airport has been driven by the politics of noise. The noise has come from the ranting of politicians and the roar from planes as they flew in and out of Sydney Airport. This noise has overpowered what should be the real argument about whether Sydney needs a new airport in the foreseeable future. The evidence suggests that a second airport is not needed.

I could not have said it better myself. The people of Western Sydney are banking on the Prime Minister to show the leadership and strength to reject the hysteria and the noise and face the facts and reject an airport for Badgerys Creek once and for all.