Mr HATTON(5.30 p.m.) —I rise to support the Senate amendments in relation to the long-term leases of the airports. The major one that I want to look at and support is the one that stopped the government from exempting private airport owners from scrutiny by the Environment Protection Agency. The amendment that has been accepted by the government ensures that the Environment Protection Agency will have to scrutinise what private owners of airports do with those airports. It means that the consideration of the situation at Holsworthy will still be under the aegis of the Environment Protection Agency.

I note as well that when the Minister for Transport and Regional Development (Mr Sharp) was addressing these amendments he indicated that the Minister for Finance (Mr Fahey), in looking at the arrangements for the long-term lease of these airports, had ensured that there would be an open and transparent process in those financial arrangements. I hope we will have an open and fully transparent process when looking at the full environmental impact statement in relation to both Holsworthy and Badgerys Creek. I fear that in the past we have not had a completely open or transparent process when looking at the situation of Holsworthy.

Prior to the last election the then opposition did not give any indication whatsoever that they would be looking to put a second airport at Holsworthy. They gave no indication whatsoever that they would be seeking to include Holsworthy in the EIS that was undertaken in relation to Badgerys Creek. Likewise, prior to the last election they gave no indication, except for the action they took in the Senate, that they would stop the fast-tracking of Badgerys Creek or that they had anything else on their agenda.

I find that in the past they really have not been open or transparent in relation to this matter. It is quite obvious that when they stopped the process of the fast-tracking of Badgerys Creek there was something definitely on the agenda. Since the election we have found out that that was the inclusion of Holsworthy as a second site for consideration in the environmental impact statement of Sydney West Airport. This is despite the fact that for 10 years Badgerys Creek had been the place that was chosen, despite the fact that the government had spent more than $155 million on buying land for the development of that and despite the fact that the government had committed itself to the fast-tracking of Badgerys Creek so it could be open for the Sydney Olympics.

We now know, after the election, that that is no longer possible—there will not be a Sydney West Airport open for the Sydney Olympics. We know absolutely that the government's preference is for the second Sydney airport to be at Holsworthy. That has come through very loudly and clearly, time and time again, in their comments—and the media commentators have picked that up very directly. The impact of not having had an open and transparent process certainly means there has not been enough time to consider the impact on Holsworthy and half a million people in the south-west area of Sydney.

The impact of putting a second airport in at Holsworthy is that now we have an environmental impact statement process that is tremendously foreshortened. On this side of the House we have taken the position that the government should get ahead with Sydney West Airport—effectively that they should get ahead with building Badgerys Creek airport because that has been 10 years in the making—and that the long-term lease of the airports and the question of Sydney airport need to be resolved as quickly as possible.

It is very important for all the people in my electorate of Blaxland who voiced their total opposition to any second Sydney airport being at Holsworthy and it is very important to people in the surrounding electorates—the 500,000 people in the south-west of Sydney—who do not want a second airport imposed on them in a process that, prior to the last election or since, has not been open and transparent and has been imposed on them in such a way that their lives will be entirely crippled. They will have a process where an environmental impact statement which attempts to cover the government's preference for Holsworthy will end up with them being bludgeoned into having the impact not only of Kingsford Smith but also of the second Sydney airport at Sydney West. So I commend the Senate and I commend the govern ment in taking up the Senate's protection—(Time expired)

Question resolved in the affirmative.