There is no doubt that creating a new Sydney airport at Badgerys Creek is a venture of similar size to the Snowy Mountains Hydro scheme. Just for a start, levelling the 1780 hectare site will involve twenty-two million cubic metres of soil and rock to be processed at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion. Creating the runway, taxiways and then both the domestic and international terminals will take decades, but they will also create totally new industries and with that the jobs and housing developments that will bring new life to this rural part of Sydney.
The big question presently hanging in the air - is who will foot the bill for this massive development ?
Joe Hockey, the former Federal Treasurer was toying with the idea of slapping a movement tax on the present Sydney airport at Mascot at the rate of $5 for each domestic ticket and $ 10 for International travel. It seems that the present Prime Minister is considering simply imposing a $10 surcharge on all movement through Sydney airport.
There is precedent for this line of thinking. In 2001 Ansett Airlines suffered a financial collapse and the Howard government implemented a temporary tax on airline ticket sales nationally to fund staff entitlements that the airline was unable to pay. This tax garnered $225 million and was then discontinued.
Airports are costly items and eventually every Australian state will need to either expand existing airport facilities or build new ones. This line of thinking of imposing a tax on the individual city it will service is a clear departure from past protocol. In the past, providing airport terminals and their facilities have been a Federal responsibility.
There is no doubt that the citizens of New South Wales will object strenuously to the imposition of a ticket tax to pay for what is clearly a Federal responsibility. Successive Federal governments have dodged making a decision on this much needed facility for many decades and if this tax succeeds it will follow that every new country airport needed to serve growing rural cities will involve the cost being borne by the citizens of that locality. That would be similar to making a city pay for having a rail extension - and then demanding that they pay to use the facility.
The airline system is an integrated form of travel which is essential to a big country like Australia. It has the huge advantage of speed over competing rail and road competition and each piece of the jigsaw is equally important in getting travellers to where they want to go. It seems parochial to label individual airports as being a responsibility of the city they serve because without them the broad spectrum would be unworkable.
A few years ago there was a peak in the price of aviation fuel and this was handled by the imposition of a fuel surcharge on ticket prices. The greater the distance travelled, the more fuel used and consequently the bigger impost added to the ticket price. In theory, this surcharge would move with the up and down gyration of oil industry pricing.
If the cost of airports is to be distanced from the Federal budget and treated as a separate item it needs to be funded by a ticket surcharge applied to all air movements - in and out of Australia - by local and International airlines. That would ensure an even spread of costs - and amount to a very few extra dollars on each ticket.
Just as aviation fuel is needed to allow planes to fly, destination airports are equally necessary for landings and departures !
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