Sydney has a problem ! Kingsford Smith Airport at Botany is running out of room and in about ten years there will be serious restrictions on the movement of aircraft. It is the main gateway to Australia, and limitations will certainly restrict our tourist trade.
The logical answer to the problem is fairly simple. Build another airport ! The only question seems to be - where ?
The state government has rejected the only two possible options within the Sydney basin, Badgery's Creek and Wilton. The Premier makes a very reasonable suggestion that a lot of money could be saved by simply making Canberra our new main airport - and using the saved money to build a high speed train to connect it with Sydney. That would be in keeping with the practice in many other overseas countries. Sydney is unique in having it's airport just a hop, skip and jump away from the city CBD - and we do have a consequent noise problem.
Canberra would need a space upgrade to handle the Sydney traffic, but this would be a lot cheaper than building a new airport from scratch. There would also be a bonus in getting the first stage of a very fast train link started between Canberra and Sydney, and possibly leading to it being extended to the dream of such a service linking Melbourne - Canberra - Sydney and Brisbane.
The danger to decision making will be - politics ! Different political ideologies are in place in state and Federal politics and this could easily develop into a standoff in which a final decision is constantly deferred. That would be a disaster. The writing is on the wall that Kingsford Smith has a coping time factor and even planning a new airport would take several years before the bulldozers got to work to make it reality.
We do not have that time cushion ! Both the state and Federal economies will start to suffer unless we have sufficient airport space to handle both the business and tourist flows in and out of Sydney, It would be ideal if the matter was settled by the end of this year - but that is unlikely.
If this develops into a typical " Mexican Standoff ", both state and Federal governments will equally share the blame for the lack of jobs and commercial malaise that will descend on both the state and the nation because they took dogmatic attitudes and refused to compromise.
Even tossing a coin to resolve the matter would be a pragmatic possibility !
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