Thursday, 23 June 2022

Melbourne Airport development

Dr READ (Brunswick) (17:22): (6452) My adjournment matter is directed to the Minister for Planning, and the action I seek is for the minister to oppose Melbourne Airport’s plan to build a third runway in his comments on the draft major development plan, which is required to be submitted to the federal minister for infrastructure. My primary reason for urging the minister to do this is that aircraft emissions are a significant contributor to climate change and we must do all we can to reduce them rather than sitting back and simply allowing them to increase. Jet planes burn many tonnes of fuel every time they fly, and the warming effect of their emissions at high altitude is much greater than if the same amount of fuel were burned on the ground. Aviation was estimated to account for more than 5 per cent of global greenhouse emissions in 2018, and international aviation is often excluded from state and national emissions totals because no government wants to take responsibility. Prepandemic, aviation emissions were rising by 6 per cent annually.

So how should we reduce them? Airlines are experimenting with low-emission fuels and electric flight, but there is no genuine possibility of really low emission flight within the next decade at least. The best way to cut emissions is to reduce flying. Before we get too depressed, let us start by just cutting unnecessary flying. Business and conference travel can often easily be replaced by online conferencing, as we have learned over the last couple of years. You can spend just as much time overseas by flying half as frequently and staying twice as long. You can still visit the relatives in Italy, but a little less often, and stay longer when you do. You can take the bus, train or ferry to many parts of Australia. I am not suggesting we all bicycle to Broome, but where choices can be made they would be encouraged by a government that was genuinely enthusiastic about cutting emissions. It should be possible to halve the number of flights we take without causing undue suffering and with enormous benefit to the planet. Even the economic impacts could be managed by a government that had climate change as a priority. Building a third runway is not what we should be doing, and the minister’s comments, which are required in the airport’s submission, should reflect this.