The White Paper was released on 26 August 2024 and is available from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Cities and the Arts’ website . Section 9 of the report contains a number of measures which will strengthen Airservices’ community engagement. The most direct are:
- Appointment of a Director of Noise and Environment by Airservices: this should increase the weight and importance of noise impacts within the organisation and promote a more balance approach.
- Reporting non-compliance with Noise Abatement Procedures (NAPs): this will provide greater transparency on compliance with flight paths designed to reduce noise.
- Application of Airservices’ Community Engagement Standard for Flight Path and Airspace Change Proposals to all flight path changes. This standard would also be used to benchmark permanent flight path and airport changes made by any proponent, such as airport operators or local councils.
- Updated guidelines on Community Engagement Consultation Groups (CACGS) designed to promote greater community engagement and the wider dissemination of information.
- The Aircraft Noise Ombudsman (ANO) will become completely independent from Airservices and became part of a wider Aviation Industry Ombuds scheme.
Other longer-term measures which will also affect the impacts of aircraft noise include:
- Review of Australian Standard AS2021:2015 Acoustics – Aircraft noise intrusion – Building siting and construction, which sets the criteria for defining aircraft noise impacts and land uses suitable within different impact levels.
- The Government will work with state and federal government departments to define best practice for the inclusion of noise exposure notifications on property titles for new developments.
- Proposed updates to the Airports Regulations 2024 would include the requirement for federally leased airports to demonstrate how airport master plans (MPs) and major development plans (MDPs) are consistent with National Airports Safeguarding Framework. (might be worth a bit of explanation of what this means in practice)
- Development of a national ‘Flying Considerately’ guidance for all aircraft operating under visual flight rules or outside of controlled airspace. While this guidance will not be binding, it would be intended to represent the Government’s expectations of aircraft operators and could be considered in investigations undertaken by the Aircraft Noise Ombuds (currently Aircraft Noise Ombudsman).