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CONTENTS
Passage History
Purpose
Background
Main Provisions
Concluding Comments
Endnotes
Contact Officer and Copyright Details
Airports Amendment Bill
1999
Date Introduced: 11 February 1999
House: House of Representatives
Portfolio: Transport and Regional Services
Commencement: Upon receipt of Royal
Assent
The main purpose
of this Bill is to amend the Airports Act 1996 (the
Principal Act) to -
-
- extend the time period available to airport lessees to have
access undertakings approved by the Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission (ACCC)
-
- require approval by the Department of Transport and Regional
Services for activities which may intrude into protected airspace,
and
-
- clarify the rights of lessees to vary the boundaries of their
leases.
Many of the facilities at airport sites, such as
warehouses, hangars, terminal gateways and aprons represent fixed
infrastructure involving an element of monopoly, that is, they are
facilities that would not normally be duplicated by users. The
Principal Act therefore contains provisions which are designed to
ensure that airport users are able to gain access to such
facilities on a fair and reasonable basis.
The Principal Act sets out a mechanism which is
designed to achieve this objective. Airport lessees may formulate
access undertakings and have these approved by the ACCC within 12
months of gaining the lease. These undertakings would set out the
policies and processes which would be followed by lessees in
negotiating access to facilities by airport users. Where such an
undertaking is approved by the ACCC, lessees may negotiate with
users in accordance with the terms of that undertaking.
However, if ACCC approval for an access
undertaking has not been granted within 12 months from the
commencement of the lease, the Principal Act requires the Minister
to formally declare that services at the airport concerned are to
be subject to Part IIIA of the Trade Practices Act 1974.
If such a declaration is in force, any dispute between a lessee and
an airport user must be notified to the ACCC, which may arbitrate
the dispute and make a determination within the provisions of Part
IIIA. The existence of an approved access undertaking enables a
more flexible approach to be taken to negotiation and dispute
settlement than the provisions applying to declared services.
However, airport lessees have argued that the
workload involved in establishing their operations and complying
with various other statutory requirements (such as the formulation
of Airport Master Plans) has made it difficult for them to meet the
12 month deadline for the approval of access undertakings. None of
the Phase 1 airport lessees (at Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth) were
able to have undertakings agreed within the designated period and
their services were thus declared. Similar problems are envisaged
for those airports recently acquired in the second tranche of
leases. The current Bill proposes that the period within which
lessees may have access undertakings approved by the ACCC should be
extended from 12 to 24 months.
The Bill also extends the range of activities,
undertaken within protected airspace, for which approval must be
obtained from the Department of Transport and Regional Services.
Already the Principal Act requires such approval to be sought where
physical structures in the vicinity of airports may impinge upon
protected airspace. Such structures might include high buildings,
extensions to existing buildings, towers, poles or even the use of
large cranes and other construction equipment. The Bill would
further require approval to be given for other, non-structural
activities which might have an impact on safe aircraft navigation.
Such hazards might include the discharge of smoke or heat from an
installation (which may obscure vision or create air turbulence),
glare from lights (such as sports stadiums), the use of lasers, or
reflected light.
The Bill also clarifies the rights of airport
lessees to make minor variations to the boundaries of their leases
by disposing of and/or acquiring land. The proposed amendments will
remove any doubt that a lessee may surrender a portion of a lease
(in order to dispose of land) without having to surrender the
entire lease. The Bill will also redefine an 'airport lease' to
remove the requirement that the leased area must include a runway.
This would make it clearer that additional land may be leased at
the boundaries of airports. Nevertheless, land so leased must be
used for airport-related activities. This redefinition of an
airport lease would, concomitantly, remove the current definitional
distinction in the Principal Act between leases at joint-user
airports and ordinary airports. Whereas most leased airport sites
would include a runway, leases at joint-user sites (such as
Canberra) only relate to a defined area of the site, with the
runways and other facilities still owned and operated by the
Department of Defence.
Several amendments of a mechanical nature are
also sought in the Bill. The Bill clarifies, for example, the
definition of an 'interest' in a lease. The Principal Act only
allows certain specified bodies to acquire airport leases or
interests in such leases. It was not the intention of the Principal
Act to extend the definition of 'interest' to encompass those
interests which did not entail the ownership or management of a
lease. The definition of 'interest' would be amended by this Bill
to specifically exclude sub-leases, licences, easements or other
incorporeal hereditaments,1 or restrictive
covenants.
Item 18 of Schedule 1 of the
Bill would amend subsection 192(5) of the Principal Act to extend
the length of the designated period within which access
undertakings may be approved by the ACCC from 12 to 24 months.
Item 14 of Schedule 1 seeks to
amend section 182 of the Principal Act to specify those additional
activities, which might impinge upon safe navigation in protected
airspace, requiring approval from the Department of Transport and
Regional Services. These activities may include the operation of a
light source, the operation of plant which reflects sunlight, any
activity creating air turbulence or any activity generating smoke,
dust, steam or gas.
Item 2 of Schedule 1 would
amend the definition of an airport lease in section 5 of the
Principal Act to omit the requirement that such a lease must
include a runway.
Item 12 of Schedule 1 would
insert a new section 163A into the Principal Act to enable the
Minister to respond to a request by a lessee to reduce the area of
a lease by gazetting a declared variation to the lease.
Item 3 of Schedule 1 would
amend the definition of 'interest' in section 5 of the Principal
Act to specifically exclude sub-leases, licences, easements or
other incorporeal hereditaments, or restrictive covenants.
The provisions of the current Bill do not
represent any significant policy change in the regulation of
airport leases and the protection of airspace in the vicinity of
airports. The provision of additional time to have access
undertakings approved by the ACCC reflects the practical problems
that have been faced by airport lessees to date in meeting the
prescribed deadline. Requiring approval for an extended range of
activities which might impinge upon protected airspace should
foster safer air navigation. Other proposed amendments are designed
to clarify the intent of existing legislation, especially in
relation to the varying of lease boundaries and the definition of
what constitutes an interest in an airport lease.
-
- Corporeal hereditaments are intangible objects, such as a title
to land, which are capable of being inherited.
Denis James
16 February 1999
Bills Digest Service
Information and Research Services
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ISSN 1328-8091
© Commonwealth of Australia 1999
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Published by the Department of the Parliamentary Library,
1999.
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