An aerial photograph of Badgerys Creek Rd, Badgerys Creek / Pic: Craig Greenhill Source: The Daily Telegraph
THE combined power of the NSW union movement has formed an unprecedented alliance with business groups to back a second Sydney airport at Badgerys Creek.
In a move that will put about 60 NSW Labor-affiliated unions representing 600,000 workers on a collision course with the federal and state governments, union leaders last night voted overwhelmingly to endorse the Badgerys Creek option.
They claim the people of western Sydney are being robbed of opportunity, and passed a motion to actively campaign for the project and end 30 years of political division.
Declaring that a second airport at Badgerys Creek was now critical for the economic and employment needs of western Sydney, the Unions NSW motion called for work to begin as soon as possible so it could be open by 2030 at the latest.
Accusing both federal and state governments of being "shortsighted" in their opposition to Badgerys Creek, Unions NSW boss Mark Lennon said western Sydney had been left devoid of the "most essential piece of infrastructure".
The motion was carried last night at a meeting of union leaders in Parramatta, after in-principle agreement was reached to not only back a second airport for Sydney but to endorse the Badgerys Creek option.
It has also endorsed a campaign to begin today in a union/business alliance aimed at pressuring the federal and state governments to end three decades of political "bickering" and finally build it.
Mr Lennon is believed to have been working for six months behind the scenes with the Sydney Business Chamber director for western Sydney David Borger - a former state Labor MP - to bring all the unions and business groups on board.
"Unions NSW notes the growing debate in the community regarding a second Sydney Airport based in western Sydney, and the failure of state and federal governments over the last 30 years to address this issue," the motion said.
"Unions NSW believes that a second airport for Sydney is a necessity by 2030 to ensure the city has the capacity to meet its growing aviation needs.
"A second airport in western Sydney will meet this need and give an enormous boost to jobs and the economy in the region both in the construction and operation phase.
"To this end Unions NSW supports proposals for a new airport at Badgerys Creek."
However, it also wanted an update to the 1997 environmental impact statement on Badgerys Creek and an independent social impact study. The unions claim that western Sydney is now the nation's third-largest economy and more western Sydney families now fly than ever before.
The move will also pit the industrial movement against its former union boss, Opposition Leader John Robertson, who is in lock step with official federal Labor policy of no new airport at Badgerys Creek.
Writing in today's The Daily Telegraph, Mr Lennon said: "Unfortunately, 30 years of bickering, indecision and short-sighted electoral politics has left western Sydney devoid of the most essential piece of infrastructure needed to guarantee its success in the 21st century: an airport. And with greater western Sydney increasingly the engine room of the NSW economy, we believe it is only logical that it should be the location of this piece of essential infrastructure."
A recent landmark federal government study into Sydney's aviation needs called for Badgerys Creek to be built - warning that, if no action was taken, $35 billion could be lost to the national economy by 2060. Badgerys Creek was first mentioned among 11 possible sites for an airport in 1969.
Land acquisitions began in 1986 and the first sod turned on the runway in 1996 before the Howard government dropped the project in 2002.
Federal Labor then backed Wilton is favour of Badgerys Creek before a joint federal-state inquiry in 2009 recommended Badgerys Creek, with Wilton the second option. The federal government then initiated a scoping study into Wilton.
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