Coming to the nuisance

The government’s airport privatisation process from the late 1990s has seen good profits to most major airport owners.

But whether this policy has been positive for the Australian aviation industry overall is questionable. Having a strong, entrepreneurial private sector has underpinned our national economy, but allowing the private sector to purchase vital aviation infrastructure and operate as local monopolies is highly problematic. There are protections under the Trade Practices Act backed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, but operators’ pockets are usually much shallower than the larger airport owners, a fact known by both sides.

It is never too late to question whether a national policy, in this case airport privatisation, was the right decision.

Some operators, particularly those in general or regional aviation, feel that they are now seen as irritations on airfields that they have operated successfully from for decades. In the worst cases, rents are first raised to prohibitive levels and then the land and structures more valuable for non-aviation purposes. Often pressure is applied to close certain aviation businesses where the land is more profitable under a different use, or the business is offered a new site that would severely restrict their operations.

Conversely, some local councils have embraced their airport ownership and made their airport attractive to passengers, new businesses and Lord Denning, that most entertaining of jurists, wrote about the concept of ‘coming to the nuisance’, that is, there is little relief for a plaintiff who builds or purchases a house close to a long-standing activity that may cause the plaintiff some distress.

This concept has never been more pertinent than in relation to the current demonising of airports and operators by local residents in relation to noise.

When the surveying teams laid out airports, often decades ago, they were trying to balance at least two important priorities – placing the airport at a convenient distance from the population it served but at such a distance as to not cause too much disturbance to that same community. In subsequent years, many councils have allowed housing to be established within the airport surveyors’ buffer zones with a consequent reduction in land prices to attract buyers. If you build or purchase your home near an airport or near a flightpath you will experience some aircraft noise. Of course, new aircraft are generating lower and lower noise emissions, but nonetheless residents are becoming more and more vocal.

However, in Lord Denning’s view, you have ‘come to the nuisance’ and having done so with full knowledge and forethought (and paid prices accordingly), you should expect no special consideration. n Australian Aviation is proud to be the official supporting journal of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia. The views in this column are those of the RAAA, and not necessarily Australian Aviation’s.