I grabbed a packet of popcorn before I read this thread - knew it would be a goody.
According to
BNK airport, it currently has four flights a week to Sydney, and two more via Newcastle. Gold Coast Airport has understandably called for
clarity about the opening date For the Queensland border. It currently claims to have three flights a week, which IIRC are all to Sydney. Which left me wondering about the relevance of the arguments about transit passengers and what the big deal over OOL was.
There is a myth that all airports are “Federal airports”. I think it would be fair to say there are 11 that you could kind of say this about - those being the 11 where the Federal Police provide policing services, 10 of which are owned by the Commonwealth. Other airports are mostly owned by Local Councils or privately.
The other myth is that the states’ jurisdiction is ousted altogether from Commonwealth Airports and other Commonwealth property. Not how our Federal Model works, as worked up by a brace of Constitutions, Parliaments and COAG meetings, and more recently the National Cabinet. Of course s52 of the Commonwealth constitution gives the Commonwealth exclusive jurisdiction over places acquired by the Commonwealth for public purposes, but most Commonwealth Powers are in the long list in s51, which are concurrent with the states. Thus the Commonwealth can make laws about aspects of Aviation within their powers, and so can the states without the s51 limitation. While Commonwealth laws prevail if there is inconsistency, everone seeks to avoid that anyway. The boundaries are not fixed, for example para 51(xx_vii) gives the States the ability to cede powers to the Commonwealth - income tax is an example - and the Commonwealth can and does cede powers to the States, including over Commonwealth Property.
Thus we have the real authority for Commonwealth owned airports being the
Commonwealth Places (Application of Laws) Act and intergovernmental deals it enables. Good luck wading through that one, but it has the practical benefit of allowing NSW Police to come and investigate an assault in a Centrelink office in say Ballina, for such an offence to be brought before the local state courts, for the Commonwealth and the States to work up deals, and so on.
Deals like these support the AFP operation in 11 airports under the
All-in policing model adopted in 2009, which replaced the clumsier arrangement with both State and Federal police having roles in major airports. Interesting that
Cairns Airport isn’t a Commonwealth place as a whole, although of course the AFP and Customs areas there would be Commonwealth property.
Of course, in practice all the public entrances to OOL are to Queensland, which gives Queensland the authority when it comes to exiting the airport. And any direct access from NSW on the NSW side would require construction - such as roads, carparks and entrances - and of course some tripartite intergovernmental agreement which doesn’t seem practical for an issue which would be on foot for at most a few months. The idea of public access via airside access entrances from NSW struck me as rather absurd.
That said, have to say the Gladys and Anna show has not been the most inspiring. Sydney was an interstate hotspot (requiring quarantine on return to Qld) but that
restriction was lifted on 14 May. Four days later, Queensland warns it
may keep the border shut till September. It all went downhill from there. And of course there were mysterious cases in Central Queensland since then, apparently community transmission. But Queensland hasn’t taken down its
current roadmap, which has interstate travel recommencing on 12 July, with two checkpoints between now and then. Plenty of opportunities for judicious backtracking from what was proclaimed as a maybe in the first case.
cheers skip
www.abc.net.au
