Transcript - interview - Radio 2GB, The Ben Fordham Show with Mark Levy

MARK LEVY [HOST]: Also too, the work on Western Sydney Airport well and truly underway. It's on track to be open to the public in late 2026. Planes will be taking off and landing 24 hours a day and it's expected to bring in more than 37 million passengers a year by 2050. It's a lot of planes, which also means a lot of noise. Today we've got some new information for residents living nearby. The preliminary flight paths have been released. Residents will be able to check these out using a new online tool. The program launched just half an hour ago and it'll give people access to noise modelling for their area. So, I thought we'd check in with the Minister responsible for all of this, Catherine King, the Federal Infrastructure Minister, and I'm pleased to say she joins me on the line. Minister, good morning to you.

CATHERINE KING [MINISTER]: Good morning, Mark. Good to be with you.

MARK LEVY: Lovely to chat. This tool has only been up for 30 minutes. How's it going so far?

CATHERINE KING: Well, I haven't had a look to see how many hits there are on it, but I'm pretty sure there'll be a fair few. This is an important tool to provide information on the preliminary flight paths for Western Sydney International Airport. The government's putting out this information early. There's an environmental impact process later in the year that actually beds all of this down. But really, we're trying to put information out there to provide as much data for people to make decisions about do they need to look at the environmental impact statement, do they need to participate in that, what's the impact going to be on them? And then obviously, as part of that process later in the year, we have to look at noise insulation and things like that as we go forward. So, really, we're just putting that information out, putting the flight paths out to provide people who've been really quite desperate to see these for some time. It's taken us a little while to get them all together to make sure that they've got information about the flight paths and how it might affect them or how it may not affect them, if the case may be.

MARK LEVY: Alright, okay. It's funny you talk about noise insulation, Minister. I grew up at a place, a Sydney suburb called Rockdale, and I grew up under the flight path and I remember the builders coming around, putting in the double-glazed windows, the air conditioning, all that sorts of sort of thing. So, there is a plan and there's funding put aside for the houses, the businesses directly under these flight paths to be soundproofed if needed?

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, that's part of the environmental impact statement later on in the year. But yes, that's part of that process to do that. But the way in which the flight paths have been designed, and they've been designed by Air Services Australia, CASA, Department of Defence, and an expert panel but there's principles that have been used in the design. Obviously, safety of aircraft operations has to be paramount, but obviously we've tried to minimise the impact over residential areas, minimise the impact during the night. So, it's important that people actually look at the noise tool. It might say, obviously, suburbs that are closer and people closest to the runway are the most directly affected. But you need to have a look at the noise tool because it may be that the flight path goes over the industrial area rather than a residential area of the suburb that you live in. So, important to have a look at it and see how you're affected directly. You can plug your actual address in and that will provide you information about all of the different flights and going forward right the way out to the 2030.

MARK LEVY: All right, so that website wsiflightpaths.gov.au, wsiflightpaths.gov.au.

Minister, while I've got you, I noted in the paper today, senior Labor sources are saying they're getting nervous about the slipping of support for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Are you one of those Labor MPs?

CATHERINE KING: I think this, The Voice, is an incredible opportunity for the country. I'll be campaigning I'm voting yes, and I'll be campaigning in my own community for people to vote yes as well. I think this is an incredible opportunity to unite the nation and I think that people are very generous that's a very generous offer on behalf of First Nations people to walk with them on reconciliation. And I think it will be important for the country to do that. And we've got a great opportunity this year to be able to really make sure that our First Nations people are heard, are listened to, and that we make better policy for them. And that's really what The Voice is about, recognising them in the Constitution and listening to them.

MARK LEVY: All right, Minister, I appreciate you joining us on this Tuesday morning.

CATHERINE KING: Really good to be with you, Mark.

MARK LEVY: That's Catherine King the Federal Infrastructure Minister. So, admittedly, we'll have a lot of our listeners on 2GB this morning who live in and around the area of the new Badgerys Creek Airport, the international airport there. So, if you want to jump on, put your address into that tool and work out the altitude of the planes, how many planes are going over, where the flight paths are actually going, you can go to wsiflightpaths.gov.au. Wsiflightpaths.gov.au.