Community challenges approval of Melbourne Airport’s Third Runway
Melbourne, 13 September 2024
Opponents of a third runway at Melbourne Airport will appeal the approval today by federal transport minister, Catherine King, of Melbourne Airport’s Third Runway Major Development Plan (M3R MDP), pending their review of the minister’s decision.
Grounds on which Flight Free Australia could appeal the minister’s decision include:
- That in its M3R MDP, the airports owner, APAM, misinformed the minister about the scale of greenhouse gas emissions from flights that a third runway will cause;
- That APAM in its M3R MDP did not address its emission reductions obligations under the Climate Change 2022 Act;
- That noise from M3R flights would exceed World Health Organisation (WHO) safe levels;
- That to make way for the M3R, grassland and woodland and endangered Swift Parrot habitat, protected under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, will be clear felled illegally; and
- That the M3R MDP that the public were asked to comment on was not, as required under the Airports Act 1996, an MDP derived from an approved Master Plan (MP).
APAM’s projected emissions, on which the minister has based her approval, only included landing and take-off emissions, which are just 2% of total flight emissions by FFAs estimation. As such approval has been based on a gross underestimation of the true climate damage a new third runway will cause. Including total flight emissions has been standard practice for similar assessments of airport emissions conducted in France and the UK.
The Climate Change Act requires national emissions to reduce 43% by 2030. But, according to FFA’s estimates, total flight emissions from Melbourne Airport, with a third runway, will increase 55% by that deadline.
If the third runway is eventually built, flight noise impacts harmful to the health of local residents will increase. Yet no noise mitigation methods such as capacity restrictions or curfews were proposed in the M3R MDP. Nor were those noise impacts, defined as harmful by the WHO, even acknowledged in the M3R MDP.
The minister’s decision, by allowing the clear felling of protected woodland and grassland and endangered Swift Parrot habitat, calls into question the value of their “protected” status under the EPBC Act.
Further grounds for an appeal lie in the fact that APAM cut to just 11 days the statutory 60 day public consultation period for its M3R MDP, in breach of the Airports Act 1996.
Mark Carter, from Flight Free Australia who campaign for cuts to aviation emissions, said, “With their ludicrously low emissions projections, the airport is playing the public and the minister for fools, with some success based on Minister King’s approval today. In Australia, we need to take responsibility for our world-leading carbon footprint and stop building new polluting infrastructure. An extra runway will put passengers at Melbourne Airport on a climate crash flight path”.
Alex Mungall, who lives under an airport flightpath, said, “A massive increase in air traffic, and diverting existing traffic over the homes and workplaces of half a million people up and down the Maribyrnong Valley, has a huge impact on our health, and amenity. The profits of airport corporations will have a massive impact on our climate, making reducing greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere almost impossible. Our super funds should be ashamed of investing in projects like this.”
- Regarding the understatement of third runway flight emissions
Flight Free Australia spokesperson, Mark Carter said “Approving a third runway based on this misrepresentation of the flight emissions it will enable has the same credibility as approving every new coal mine & gas extraction project because the emissions they enable are made by someone else, later, somewhere else”. - Regarding compliance with the Climate Change Act 2022
Carter said “The minister’s decision flies in the face of her own government’s emissions reduction commitments. Does the minister really not know that global warming has hit 1.5ºC and that flying is the fastest way to push it to 2ºC, or does she just not care?” asked Carter. - Regarding increased harmful noise impacts
Airport resident Kay Shields asks, “Would our MPs in Canberra tolerate 1000 noise events, above WHO safe levels, in parliament, every day? Of course not. Yet the government expects a majority of residents in the half dozen seats it holds around the airport, to both suffer these ongoing noise impacts and continue to give it their vote. They should remember that such expectations, of Brisbane voters impacted by its third runway, went unfulfilled at the last election. Our votes should not be taken for granted”. - Regarding the truncated public consultation
Carter said “Transport minister Catherine King, would appear to be silencing public feedback in approving a third runway plan that failed to comply with the public consultation requirements of the Airports Act.”
