The Hon Catherine King MP
Press Conference - Western Sydney International Airport
ANNE STANLEY: Good morning everybody and welcome to Western Sydney International Airport. It’s wonderful to have you all here for another milestone in this game-changing project for Southwest and Western Sydney. I’d like to welcome Minister Catherine King who, as the Minister for Infrastructure, has been making sure that this project is going to do the best for this part of the world, and I’d like to hand over to Simon Hickey to say a few words.
SIMON HICKEY: Good morning everyone. It’s wonderful to be here. I’d like to start by acknowledging the Cabrogal people of the Dharug Nation and recognise their 60,000 years of continuous cultural history on this place where we stand today. And I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. Thank you Minister for coming today to mark this wonderful milestone. Today we’re announcing that the runway- the major works contractors have completed their project on the runway and the runway has now been handed over to Western Sydney International Airport. We’re now going to proceed with a rigorous testing of this airfield to ensure that we’re ready to welcome passengers to and from this airfield next year, on time and on budget. So there have been thousands of workers that have spent millions of hours building this runway. This runway is 3.7 kilometres long, it’s around about a metre thick, and really what that means is it can take any aircraft designed today to land on this runway. We’ve designed this runway with fast taxiways at 45-degree angles, which means you can get to and from the terminal in about five minutes. Which means that you can get home to the family or get onward with your journey faster from this airport. We’re delighted to mark this milestone in our progression to opening next year, and I might then with that hand over to the Minister, thank you.
CATHERINE KING: Thanks very much Simon, and can I too acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we gather, and pay my respects to elders past and present. We’re here obviously with Anne Stanley, thank you for that welcome. To Mike Mrdak, the Deputy Chair of Western Sydney International Airport. I have Rob Sharp with me from Airservices Australia, and two of my departmental officials who’ll- both Richard and David who might be available to take some questions as well. I am absolutely thrilled to be here today, to celebrate the completion of Western Sydney International Airport’s airside package which obviously includes the runway that you are standing on today, but also all of the airside work that you can see around us, and it’s been no mean feat to get this done.
An airport, of course, is not complete without a runway, so it goes without saying this is a really significant milestone in the airport’s progress. We’ve got 3.7 kilometres long, equipped with approximately 3,000 ground aeronautical ground lights, and the runway of course is designed to cater for up to 10 million annual passengers from day one of its operation. We won’t quite hit that on day one of its operation, it will take us a little while, but that’s what it’s equipped to do. It will be able to hold what’s called Code F aircraft, which includes the A380 and the B747, our larger aircrafts, meaning that international services can operate as soon as it is open. It took a team of 30 paving experts to place 140,000 tonnes of asphalt. And if you think about that, that is 70 soccer fields worth in size. And that, along with the earthworks and construction, clocked up almost 6 million worker hours. Yet another example of how Western Sydney International is not just about building an airport, it’s actually about providing jobs and a simulator for the economy of this region. We’ve already, here at the airport, created over 11,650 annual full-time equivalent jobs have gone into the construction of this airport, and over half of those have actually come from the local area.
Today I’m also announcing the authorisation of the preliminary flight paths and the airspace design. That is a crucial step to get this airport open in 2026. We released those preliminary flight paths back in June of 2023 and they have been subject to the most extensive consultation process of any airport in the country. We’ve had more than 50 consultation sessions, over 8,400 submissions to the draft environmental impact statement. The final EIS was released in November last year, and with five changes made in response to the public feedback that will minimise aircraft noise, particularly overnight. Today, I am officially authorising the preliminary flight paths with those changes, and when making this decision the community has been front of mind for me. We’ve learnt lessons from other airports, which is why I have imposed a number of additional conditions that will reduce aircraft noise. Most notably, I’ll be issuing a ministerial direction to Airservices Australia, who we have here today with us, to make ‘Reciprocal Runway Operations’ the default operating mode at night, including the use of a specific Noise Abatement Procedure when both are safe to do so. In particular, this will achieve the overall lowest possible impact on surrounding communities and will direct aircraft away from the Blue Mountains, Wallacia, and most of the heavily populated areas of Western Sydney at night. And today’s authorisation also incorporates recommendations by the Minister for the Environment to establish an environmental monitoring program for the Greater Blue Mountains area to ensure cultural and natural heritage of the region is protected. This is, of course, in addition to the community noise monitoring program that will be undertaken by Airservices Australia who will soon begin consultation about where to place the location of those noise monitors.
And while Western Sydney International has been in the works for decades, we do understand that the start of operations can bring some uncertainty and it is why, as a further measure, I have asked for or requested the establishment of a community engagement forum to monitor and respond to aircraft noise and the flight path issues during the early years of its operation. This is of course in addition to the already- Community Aviation Consultation Group that the airport will be required to establish to look at other parts of the operation of the airport. This is a very long-term project, air traffic won’t pick up for some time to come, but we have worked very hard as we’ve put these flight paths and designed these flight paths to make sure we minimise aircraft noise particularly overnight, and particularly for those more heavily populated communities. And these conditions will mean that we are balancing the growth of the airport with the needs of the communities on the ground. Again, I commend Western Sydney International Airport for the work that they have done, the board, but all of the construction workers who’ve been involved so far in this project. A great milestone today, ready for opening in 2026. Happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: What areas are [indistinct]… I’m aware of. Just explain a little bit more about what you’ve enacted.
CATHERINE KING: So in essence what we’ve enacted with the reciprocal runway operations at night, it means that the airport- well, only people will- the planes will fly in and out in the same direction and that means that you can actually have a lot more control over where they go, so minimising the amount of communities that they go over. We’ll also make my department officials available to you to talk. There’s maps and things available as well.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]…
CATHERINE KING: Sorry. Yes, of course. Sorry, we’re all challenged a little bit today with the wind, but thank you.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]…
CATHERINE KING: That’s all right, you’re fine, you’re fine. Oh, now it died down for one second.
JOURNALIST: I think you’re alright. Just because the…
CATHERINE KING: Yes, of course, the sound is [indistinct]…
JOURNALIST: Not just the sound, I think it’s the [indistinct]…
CATHERINE KING: That’s alright. We’ve got an audio as well, I think, as well. Gosh, that wind’s challenging. Okay.
JOURNALIST: So just on that [indistinct]. If they’re going in and out the way…
CATHERINE KING: [Talks over] At night. Yes, correct.
JOURNALIST: What about if the wind [Indistinct]… what happens then?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. So obviously the runway operations, they are all contingent on when it’s safe to do so, but that will be the night-time operation that’s safe to do that. And that’s what we’re suggesting, or that’s what I’ll- the ministerial direction will outline.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]
CATHERINE KING: Well, as I said, it’s a long-term project. I think that as the flights ramp up over time, all of that information has been made available, since we released the preliminary flight paths in 2023, about where communities will be impacted. We released the noise tool as well about that, but what this does is make sure that we’re minimising the least population, basically, in terms of aircraft noise.
The advantage, of course, of the greenfields airport, is that this has been known for a long period of time that an airport’s going to come here, so the population density is not as great as in some other areas.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]
CATHERINE KING: At night.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]
CATHERINE KING: You’ll see that. We’ll put the maps out shortly and you’ll see that, but obviously what we’ve been at pains to look at is to try and minimise the amount of noise, particularly at night, over higher density population areas. So the way in which reciprocal runway operations means that we’ve tried to make sure that the least population is affected, so it’s small amounts.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] in terms of airlines who are using this airport …
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, so obviously we’ve had both Singapore and Qantas, and I’ll let Simon make further announcements about- he’s in lots of discussions with other airlines as well, but we’ve already those announcements by Qantas and by Singapore Airlines.
JOURNALIST: So we can expect [indistinct] announcement [indistinct]?
CATHERINE KING: [Laughs]
JOURNALIST: Clock is ticking.
SIMON HICKEY: Thanks very much. The clock is ticking and we’re talking to a lot of airlines. I don’t have any announcements today, but we just were recently at the Roots conference. We talked to over 30 airlines, and there’s a lot of interest in Western Sydney International Airport. And that will come on as we open and it will continue to grow into the future. And you can expect that we will make other announcements about other airlines.
JOURNALIST: So you’re confident you’ll fill those slots?
SIMON HICKEY: Yes, over time we will fill those slots, and then we’ll continue to grow. This airport is designed for growth, and so ultimately we will look to continue to grow efficiently and effectively from here.
JOURNALIST: Just on the airline interest, how much of a sticking point is the fact that the train won’t be up and running for about a year until after opening? Is there more interest once that train is going to be up and running?
SIMON HICKEY: So we’ve got great connectivity from day one. We’ve got a brand-new motorway, the M12 Motorway. We’ve got new bus routes to the surrounding centres of Penrith, Liverpool, Campbelltown and Blacktown, so there is great connectivity to and from. With the M12 Motorway, you can get to the CBD from this airport without going through one set of traffic lights. We’re talking to Transport for New South Wales about contingency for the period from when we open until the Metro opens, and those conversations are going well, but that’s for Transport for NSW, but we are talking [indistinct] …
JOURNALIST: And is the train proving a sticking point with some airlines’ interest?
SIMON HICKEY: No, the airlines do understand that great connectivity that we have here. They understand this community. We’ve got- you know, 2.5 million people live in Western Sydney. It’s one of the most vibrant communities in Australia. It’s one of the fastest growing communities in Australia. It’s a younger, ambitious community. This airport will bring great jobs. It’ll also allow people to fly around the world from here, from this centre, the third largest economy in Australia. So actually, airlines recognise that this is a great place to be with a great catchment, if you like, and a great community surrounding us.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]
SIMON HICKEY: So we’re still building- we’re still finishing off the other parts of the airport precinct. So you can see we’re looking at the terminal, there’s a few things to go there and all of the land side roads. Right behind us, we’re building- or Airservices is building the fire station. All the fire trucks are now in Australia, but we’re building that. We’re doing the cargo precinct- we’re still finishing the cargo precinct, and we’ll hand that over. As you know, this is a digital aerodrome, and so we be building- we’ll be doing that digitally.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]
SIMON HICKEY: That’s a matter for government, and obviously we do talk to the Government about that, but that is a matter for government. What I would note and the Minister could note is that there have been announcements about purchasing corridors to ensure that those corridors are available for future expansions, and so I think that’s a great indication to the people of Western Sydney that as demand grows, then those corridors will be available.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]
SIMON HICKEY: We will see some flights come and land here. That will be part of the testing regime. We’ve already tested the lighting system. We have whole simulated exercises that we’ll do, incorporating not just us but all the other entities that work across the airport. So from Airservices through to the Federal Police through to the local police, and all of those have to come together to help us to coordinate in a crisis or any other situation that we might find ourselves in. We’ve got a test- we had 70 systems that we’ve implemented across this airport. They’re all integrated and we’ve tested that integration. Now we’ve got to test it in a more live environment. And we’ve got to actually build the muscle to ensure that when our first passengers arrive and our first airlines arrive, we’re ready to go, and so that takes a whole change of mindset now and a whole change of rhythm for our own internal organisation about how we get ready for that.
JOURNALIST: What percentage, would you say, the airport is [indistinct]? And are you still on time and on budget?
SIMON HICKEY: So, in terms of percentage of the construction, we’re getting to the completion of the major works construction. But what we’re now moving towards is the other areas that I talked about, and we’re moving towards that more- the labour component, the people component of getting ready and the testing of that, and testing all of those systems and then turning them off and then working on our contingency plans. We are on time and on budget. We will open next year on time and on budget.
JOURNALIST: You’ve had the Cessnas go through. Will we see some big body aircraft coming?
SIMON HICKEY: We will bring larger aircraft to this airport now that the runway is complete, and we will start through that testing regime to bring larger aircraft here as well. So we will bring ourselves and, as I say, rigorously test ourselves in every aspect.
JOURNALIST: So the residents will get an idea of what’s going on too? [Indistinct] ...
SIMON HICKEY: Yeah, the residents can expect that, and we will continue- it’s always been important to us to engage with the community. We’ve had school programs here. We’ve had over 100,000 people come to our experience centre. We will include community in our testing regime so they will get to know our terminal, and we’ll continue with those programs. We’re not stepping back from that, we’re actually continuing that and through it into operations, and so yes, the community are part of what we’re doing here.
Remember that it’s- a really important part to us is that this is going to bring jobs and opportunity for people of Western Sydney in particular, and it’s going to bring those jobs closer to home so that they don’t have to travel on expensive motorways and spend time away from their family. They can actually work close to home in great jobs that are right here in Western Sydney.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] something like 11,000 jobs [indistinct]. How many people will end up working at the airport once it’s fully up and running?
SIMON HICKEY: So as we move to- as we open and then move towards 10,000, there’ll be somewhere between six to 8000 people that will work here at the airport. As an example, just the Qantas announcement, they announced 700 jobs just from that one announcement. There’ll be people working down in the cargo facilities, and our business park, we’re starting the stage one of that.
But in addition to that is the people that work around the airport. So the cargo facilities will include more logistics centres that will happen across Western Sydney. Just up at Kemps Creek – we can see Kemps Creek just behind me – we’ve got Amazon, we’ve got, Australia Post. Their largest sortation centres in the Southern Hemisphere are just up the road, and they will continue to grow. But just behind me as well, we’ve got the new Bradfield City that’s being developed, and that’s just right next to one metro stop from this city. So the promise of this airport is to be a linchpin to bring all those jobs here to Western Sydney for local residents.
JOURNALIST: Just a question for the Minister, [indistinct] transport here, on the high speed rail …
CATHERINE KING: [Talks over] Oh, okay. Yes.
JOURNALIST: … before about having a station here, is that still on the cards? And do you have- do you know when you might have enough to talk to Infrastructure Australia about it?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, so obviously Infrastructure Australia are looking at the business case. As you’d understand, the Government’s been- we’ve established the High Speed Rail Authority, we’ve invested over $500 million into that early works. The business case is underway. Its geotechnical work has been underway as well. When we’ve got more to say, once we’ve received Infrastructure Australia’s assessment of the business case, we’ll let you know as soon as possible. But really, the Government is determined to look at how we get this project, obviously from Newcastle to Sydney first, and then obviously whether we can bring it out to here, whether it can go further along. They are matters for government to work our way through. But it is going to be, no doubt, a big project to do, and we’re determined to make sure we’ve got all that planning work done right, we’ve got a good assessment of how much it costs, but also how we can fund it as well because we think it’s time for high speed rail in Australia, but we don’t want to go the pathway of previous attempts of sort of starting and not being able to actually know that we can deliver it, so that’s where we’re at the moment.
JOURNALIST: Minister, that singular night-time flight path, is that coming in [indistinct]…
CATHERINE KING: Sorry, I can’t hear you.
JOURNALIST: Is that coming in over [indistinct]?
CATHERINE KING: No, it’s not coming in over the Blue Mountains. Certain areas- the way in which you see the maps, and I might get- I’m just trying to think who to- who can talk about that- you’ll see that there is- it does go slightly over the Blue Mountains, but the amount of flights that it will be, you’re looking at about- if we’re using the reciprocal runway and the NAP program, it’s about one flight a night out to 2033.
JOURNALIST: So, is the Blue Mountains an area that’s not affected by that singular [indistinct]…
CATHERINE KING: No, no. And I think when you see the maps and you look at the noise tools, you’ll see what we’ve actually tried to do is minimise. So obviously, we’re sharing noise across the basin, and it’s a constrained basin in terms of we’ve got both Kingsford Smith and we’ve got Bankstown and Camden as well, but there’s no one single area that you’d say is affected. What we’ve tried to do is minimise it for everyone.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask the gentleman [indistinct]…
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, yeah, I’ll get- if Richard wants to talk, yes, sure. I can come back.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]… is it looking like that’s going to come into government [indistinct]?
CATHERINE KING: Again, well, it’s in voluntary administration at the moment, and obviously the administrators have gone out again to the market for a commercial buyer and that process continues to be underway. I’ve been briefed on that process and I’ll allow that. That’s obviously continuing so there’s not much further we can add to that at the moment, but again, we’ve been very determined, particularly for regional aviation, very determined that we make sure we have a strong third player and a strong regional aviation market here in Australia. I’ll let Richard talk about that [inaudible]…
JOURNALIST: How many flight paths are there?
RICHARD WOOD: There are essentially five sets of flight paths, three in the day and two at night. It depends on the operation of the aircraft. This is currently a training zone, so that’ll be moved. That’s one of the things that has to be [indistinct] through this process.
JOURNALIST: How difficult has it been to try and safely and…
RICHARD WOOD: This is a process that has been going on for a very long period of time. There was the first environmental impact assessment back in 2016. Out of that, 12 principles were set for airspace design. We went through a very rigorous process, the department leading that with our consultants, with Airservices Australia, Western Sydney, CASA, and importantly Defence, to get those flight paths into a fleet piece so that we could do an environmental impact assessment. That was over 5,000 pages. We got 6,500- sorry, 8,500 submissions to that. And out of those submissions we got 600 that touched on flight paths, 300 suggestions that we looked at, 50 of those were deep- we were able to take the detailed analysis and made the five changes that the minister’s touched on, which is, you know, importantly reciprocal runway operations, which is effectively behind you to the southwest. They’ll be taking off and landing from that area. When we’re using the noise abatement procedure, that means we can move the aircraft away from the area of the Blue Mountains where people are most populated along the Western Highway.
JOURNALIST: Is there a specific part of Sydney that would be impacted?
RICHARD WOOD: I need to refer you to the Environmental Impact Assessment, which is online.
JOURNALIST: I don’t have that with me but I’m asking you the question. You would know. You know the suburbs we’re talking about.
RICHARD WOOD: Well, there’s many suburbs of Sydney because, of course, the runway orientation is what dictates where aircraft start. One of the great advantages of this site is, of course, as you look around you, you don’t see houses. It’s been many decades of land-use protection, which means we don’t have the highly populated areas immediately adjacent to the airports like at places- like at Kingsford Smith.
JOURNALIST: [Indistinct question]
RICHARD WOOD: It’s a very different airport.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask, sorry, one last question. The night-time flights are something that obviously [Indistinct]… report through quite extensively and consulted on quite extensively. So what suburbs, in your educated opinion, would be most impacted by [Indistinct]…?
RICHARD WOOD: I’d really have to point you to the Environmental Impact Assessment. Noise is a very subjective matter.
CATHERINE KING: One of the things we didn’t mention as well is the noise amelioration guidelines. They were- there was a draft as part of the Environmental Impact Statement. Those guidelines are being finalised. They’ll be out in the next four to five weeks. And in quarter four, people will start to be able to apply. Again, because we’re in a greenfield site, there’s not a lot of houses that are going to be affected by noise or night-time noise because there aren’t a lot of houses. So the most noise, when you think about it, is when the aircraft are landing and taking off. As you get further away from taking off and landing, the noise is less as they get higher and higher up in the air. So that’s the advantage of this particular airport is that you don’t have the dense population that you have around Kingsford Smith.
Can I say that there will be no noise for anyone? I can’t say that because that’s the very nature of operating an airport, is that you’ve got planes and planes do make noise. The new planes are much quieter than some of the older planes, so the advantage here is we will be having some of those in. But the advantage here is the way in which the runway has been designed, the way in which the airspace has been designed, we have minimised the impact, both night and day, over densely populated areas as much as we possibly can, bearing in mind we’ve got a complex airspace to deal with in the basin.
JOURNALIST: Minister can I ask you- I’ve got a question on Inland Rail?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, sure.
JOURNALIST: Do we have a completion date for the Inland Rail project [indistinct]…?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, well, as I say, it was terrific. Last week, I was at Wangaratta where we opened the brand-new station precinct which is allowing for double-stacked trains and that huge work that’s been going on through Victoria and getting Inland Rail to Parkes. What getting Inland Rail to Parkes allows us to do is then open freight into the West as well, getting it into Port of Botany and over to Perth as well as actually opening it up, the possibilities of freight, double-stacked freight rail to Newcastle Port as well. We’re going through at the moment the environmental assessments for beyond Parkes, particularly through Queensland, and once we’ve got an understanding of when those environmental approvals are done, we’ll have a better understanding of when the construction date is for that part of the project.
JOURNALIST: Just a question about the international flight [indistinct]… the economy of airline [indistinct]…?
CATHERINE KING: Well, I think what you’re seeing is the demand where you can see it. The reason we’re building a second airport here in Sydney is because of capacity. Capacity and demand for aircraft, demand for freight, demand for people to go- come into Australia and out of Australia has only been increasing. And so, that is why we’re building this second airport, is because the capacity constraints of the existing airport. Each will operate in their own markets. I’m sure they’ll work competitively with and against each other as well. But what it actually does, which is terrific, it provides that great opportunity for Kingsford Smith to do what it does well. But having a lot of the freight coming out of here as well provides enormous opportunities for the West. We know alongside the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal, the airport that we’re building here, the investments we’re making in road and rail infrastructure, really is just saying this is where the economy, not just of Sydney, is really going to be growing into the next 20, 30, 40 years. But the whole country, really, will be looking at the west of what actually happens here in terms of the overall economy. So, you’ll see that through the airport, but you’ll see that as well through a lot of the freight moving out to here as well.
JOURNALIST: Anne, can I ask you a question? The Minister alluded to changes to flight paths to help ease noise off the south-west. Are you happy with those changes? Have you seen those flight paths?
ANNE STANLEY: The Minister only announced them this morning, but I have been very engaged both with the community and with the department over a number of years, probably five years, about any concerns the community has had, and making sure that the voices have been listened to and changes have been made. But specifically, as far as my part of the world, I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet.
CATHERINE KING: Is that it? Lovely. Thank you.