COMMENT:
THE Liberal State government has broken its promises to deliver the key infrastructure rail link Avalon Airport needs to become an international airport.
In a cynical bid to offset criticism of its broken 2010 election promise to build the rail link – as the 2014 election looms large – the State Government has announced a preferred alignment for the rail link.
But the announcement, leaked to select sympathetic media outlets before the official launch — in a practice becoming increasingly common as the November 29 poll nears – throws into sharp relief the woes faced by Avalon Airport.
With Jetstar Avalon flights cut to just five a day – in response to poor patronage driven by numerous sudden cancellations – the airport is subject of a City Hall campaign to use it or lose it.
Yet aspirations of Avalon becoming an international airport are no nearer reality than they were before the Liberals assumed power in Spring Street in 2010.
The reality is that 800 Qantas maintenance jobs are gone, flights to Brisbane have stopped and Geelong patronage is down from 60 to 20 per cent of total passenger traffic. The airport is rapidly its potential as regional transport hub.
The $50 million rail link promised at the last election has not eventuated. It has never been even seriously pursued by the government. And the latest effort to proffer a hopelessly-overdue rail link alignment is pure self-interest politics by the Government.
It’s a self-serving photo opportunity, an attempt to smoke the public about a promise it evidently had no intention of fulfilling.
It’s not the only broken promise to Geelong by the Liberals.
The Liberals also promised a $50 million stand-alone community hospital at Waurn Ponds but reneged on the deal – giving the money instead to private operator Epworth, which was running two years behind on its plans for another Waurn Ponds hospital, on the proviso it provide some public access. It stinks to high heaven, Labor MP Lisa Neville has said.
Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder would have Geelong believe the Avalon rail link will support the development of Avalon Airport “as Victoria’s second international airport and provide connections to Melbourne and Geelong”.
Great in theory but the question is when? It wasn’t this term. Might it be next term?
Remarkably, Aviation Industry Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips said the rail link alignment was “a further show of faith in the future of Avalon Airport by the Coalition Government”.
Who does he think he’s kidding, other than those select media outlets who unquestioningly publish the Government’s propaganda ahead of its release to other media outlets?
It doesn’t stop there, though.
Premier Denis Napthine claims the non-existent rail plan – and that’s about all it is, a draftsman’s sketch — also complements the Liberal Government’s “decision to fund and build a rail link to Melbourne Airport as a part of the Melbourne Rail Link project and the Coalition Government’s $24 billion transport infrastructure budget”.
Sorry, how does boosting Tullamarine help Avalon?
Napthine again: “Having two international curfew-free airports, both with rail links, gives Victoria a massive economic advantage, especially compared with other states, by allowing for increased competition in the aviation industry and improved tourism access.”
A couple of things: one, Jetstar’s not competitive enough to maintain flights at Avalon, it’s been given public money to stay there; and, two, who’s seen any competitive advantage emerge from Avalon lately?
Oh, and a third thing: media pap from Spring Street is not doing a thing to assist matters. And it’s fooling no-one. Well, almost no-one.
— NOEL MURPHY
