Badgerys Creek airport announcment illustrates our politicians just 'don't get it'

Badgerys Creek is to the
 left and Sydney to the right.

Badgerys Creek airport announcements illustrate, conclusively, the Australian politicians just “don’t get it”.

A confluence of world events – energy scarcity, a damaged atmosphere being manifested in a changed climate, a less than healthy world economy – makes the development of a multi-billion dollar second airport for Sydney a wholly inappropriate idea.

However, it is not just an idea for with bi-partisan political support the airport and the infrastructure that supports it will soon be taking shape.

Ideology driving the airport is exactly that which has seen the world act irresponsibly in terms of resource use to such an extent that we have polluted earth’s atmosphere through our incessant use of hydrocarbons, the steady and unrelenting erosion of what is a finite resource and a severely undisciplined approach to our handling of the world’s economy.

Announcing the Badgerys Creek plan, Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said roads supporting the airport would be developed first followed by the airport itself.

“We don’t want the people of western Sydney to have an airport without having the decent transport infrastructure that western Sydney deserves,” he said.

Driven obviously by the need to placate voters in western Sydney, Mr Abbott was quick to point to the economic implications for western Sydney claiming a completed and fully operational airport would create work for 60 000 people.

The whole idea, of course, is not related in any sense to creating an Australia able to endure the social changes that will be enforced upon us as climate change worsens and disrupts the business as usual paradigm.

Assistant minister for infrastructure and regional development, Jamie Briggs, told Radio National this morning that the bewildering array of roads around the second Sydney airport said, in answer the question about what was the government doing, said what  was happening was not about an airport, rather is was about an economic plan.

“What we’re doing with this is building the capacity of a city of in effect two million people growing at three million people over the next few decades so they can contribute more to our national economy – the airport is but a part of a broader plan,” he said.

He argued that the airport was just a part of “growing” our national economy,

He cleverly deflected questions about cost to coming May budget which will be brought down by Treasurer, Mr Joe Hockey.

Mr Briggs said that government had gone to last year’s election promising many things, among them that it would build the infrastructure of the 21^st Century.

Former western Sydney
Liberal MP, Jackie Kelly,
who says Tony Abbott has
signed his 'death warrant".

The plan for the Badgerys Creek airport does not include rail and Mr Briggs slid out from under that question pointing out that Australia’s rail passenger network was state owned and operated, suggesting any rail link would be the responsibility of the New South Wales O’Farrell Government (although that, as of this morning, Wednesday, April 16, is about to change for NSW Premier, Barry O’Farrell, has announced his intention to resign).

He told Radio National listeners this (the Badgery Creek airport) was part of a plan for a “better Australia”.

The “better Australia” Mr Briggs his Coalition cohorts seek is not to be found in spending billions on a carbon-intensive project.

However, the project is not without its critics among them some locals who are unhappy with what is intended and former western Sydney Liberal MP Jackie Kelly has vowed to campaign against the airport, saying Tony Abbott has signed his “death warrant”.