Melbourne Airport Environs Safeguarding 30 Standing Advisory Committee Request to be Yes heard?: Full Name: Stephanie Mann on behalf of Australia Pacific Airports (Melbourne) Pty Ltd Organisation: MinterEllison Affected property: Melbourne Airport, Departure Drive, Melbourne Airport VIC 3045 Attachment 1: Attachment 2: Attachment 3: Comments: Provided by separate email Submission Cover Sheet 1 APAM MAESSAC SUBMISSION TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction and Executive Summary ...................................................................................... 3 1.1 Summary of Current Issues...................................................................................... 4 1.2 Melbourne Airport’s submission ............................................................................... 6 2. Airport context and the economic benefits of Melbourne Airport............................................. 7 2.1 History ...................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Legislative framework ............................................................................................... 7 2.3 Existing operations ................................................................................................... 8 2.4 Future plans ............................................................................................................. 8 2.5 Passengers per year before COVID-19 ................................................................... 9 2.6 Economic impacts and activity ................................................................................. 9 2.7 Employment ........................................................................................................... 10 2.8 Supporting Imports and Exports for Victoria .......................................................... 10 3. The Need for Effective Airport Safeguarding, the Cost of Poor Planning and the Melbourne Airport Experience ................................................................................................................. 12 3.1 Overview................................................................................................................. 12 3.2 Why do we need to safeguard our airports? .......................................................... 14 3.3 What are the deficiencies in the existing planning framework? ............................. 15 3.4 Community awareness ........................................................................................... 21 3.5 Local government awareness ................................................................................ 22 3.6 Potential costs of those failures? ........................................................................... 23 4. Proposed Solutions ................................................................................................................ 26 4.1 Statement of Issue #1 ............................................................................................ 26 4.2 Statement of Issue #2 ............................................................................................ 27 4.3 Statement of Issue #3 ............................................................................................ 30 4.4 Statement of Issue #4 ............................................................................................ 33 5. Other mechanisms and opportunities to improve airport safeguarding ................................. 36 Appendices ........................................................................................................................................... 38 Appendix A ............................................................................................................................................ 39 Legislative and policy framework for Melbourne Airport ........................................................ 39 Legislative Framework ........................................................................................................... 39 Commonwealth Legislation ................................................................................................... 39 Victorian Legislation ............................................................................................................... 43 National Policy Framework .................................................................................................... 44 Victorian State Policy ............................................................................................................. 47 Melbourne Airport Strategy 1990 ........................................................................................... 49 Land Use Controls and the Melbourne Airport Environs Overlay ......................................... 49 2 1. Introduction and Executive Summary This document is Melbourne Airport’s written submission to the Melbourne Airport Environs Safeguarding Standing Advisory Committee (Committee). This submission addresses the Committee’s terms of reference as set out in Part B of that document, where, in summary the Committee is to consider and advise upon the planning framework for Melbourne Airport and its environs. The appointment of this Committee, and the terms of reference which it must address represents a significant milestone in the development of the planning framework for Melbourne Airport. Not since the mid-1990s has an inquiry of this kind been appointed by the Victorian government to specifically consider the interrelationship between planning for the airport and planning outside the airport. It is vitally important to the ongoing growth of the Victorian economy that the primary aviation gateway can properly function on a 24/7 basis safely and without constraint. Melbourne Airport is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the State. It connects Victoria, and in particular – Melbourne to the rest of the country and the world beyond. The ease with which people and goods can access Melbourne from abroad is an intrinsically important part of the Victorian economy – in tourism and trade and commerce more generally. For an airport be able to provide a high level of service to the economy and to be capable of facilitating growth in the economy, it must be able to respond flexibly to changes in national and international demand and changing operational practices – whether those changes are caused by the type of aircraft that visit the airport, the timing of arrivals or departures, or the routes that Melbourne Airport is able to attract to it as a destination. It has long been an aspiration at all levels of government that Melbourne Airport at Tullamarine is free to grow and respond to changes and demands, unburdened by the limitations which might be created by the potential for land use conflict that inevitably arises when lower order activities pop up within an area affected by airport activities. The long-term and effective safeguarding of the airport is of critical importance if the social and economic benefits of the airport to Melbourne and Victoria (both now and in the future) are to be maintained and protected. The planning framework regulating the development of State controlled lands within which the airport operates is critically important to achieving those objectives. It is essential that the planning framework recognises the importance of the Melbourne Airport. The planning framework must contain control and systems which give proper effect to that recognition to ensure that the operational capacity of the airport is secured, and to prevent development decisions which are inconsistent with the importance of Melbourne Airport the to the strategic objectives of the State. The current planning framework does not achieve this outcome and puts at risk the long term growth of the airport and the benefits which might flow to the State. In summary, experience with the current planning framework leads Australia Pacific Airports (Melbourne) Pty Ltd (APAM) to conclude that the following refinements to the planning framework should be considered: • the policy framework safeguarding Melbourne Airport should be further enhanced to clearly articulate the importance/priority of the Airport relative to other planning considerations, and better reflect the significance of Commonwealth airspace regulations in threshold land use planning decisions at State and local level; • a safeguarding framework that adopts effective tools fit for the purpose of managing the land use conflict and prioritises up-to-date technical information relating to the airport; • more targeted planning controls to implement the strategic objectives in the context of development applications that have the potential to prejudice the ongoing operation of the airport is not permitted; and • more effective recognition of the status of APAM in the planning system as the operator of the airport. 3 APAM recommendations APAM recommends improvements and enhancement to the current planning framework across four key areas. These are outlined in Table 1 below. Issue Recommendation The Right The airport operator needs consistent, appropriate recognised status in the planning Status process to participate in land use planning decisions proportionate to the scale and importance of the airport. The airport operator should have referral authority status in the planning system. The Right The policy framework should better reflect the critical role of the airport in the Policy metropolitan planning