The need for and location of a second airport serving Sydney, Australia, was the subject of much debate. The new airport would supplement or replace the city's existing Kingsford Smith Airport. Governments had debated the issue since the 1940s, but for decades had not pursued anything beyond preliminary investigations and precautionary land acquisition. The debate was settled in the 2010s when a site at Badgerys Creek was selected. With an estimated cost of between $6 and $8 billion, construction of the airport began in September 2018 and will be completed in 2026.
Since the construction of Kingsford Smith, aviation in Sydney has grown significantly. Between 1985 and 2015, total passenger movements through Sydney more than quadrupled from 9.2 million to 39.8 million. In 2015, 21% of all scheduled flights in Australia landed or took off at Kingsford Smith. The airport dealt with 45% of international passengers in 1998.
The Federal government made preliminary investigations and purchased land near Badgerys Creek in the 1980s and early 1990s. In May 2013, the Gillard government released a technical study into the feasibility of Wilton as an airport site. By the time of the 2013 election, the Australian Labor Party had expressed support for the concept of a second airport, but did not support any particular site, whereas the then-Opposition Coalition was split on the issue, with some ministerial support for an airport at Badgerys Creek site while the then-Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had not committed to constructing an airport at all. The second airport was also opposed by the state government of New South Wales, which instead favoured increasing capacity at Kingsford Smith and building a high-speed rail connection between Sydney and Canberra Airport, although doubt had been cast on the viability of the latter option by a study in 2012. After a further study, on 15 April 2014 the Federal government confirmed that the second Sydney airport will be built at Badgerys Creek, as the Western Sydney Airport. In May 2017 the Federal Government announced it would develop the second Sydney Airport, after the Sydney Airport Group declined the Government's offer to develop the second airport, and announced an investment of $5.3 billion in the project over four years in the 2017–18 Budget.
History
In 1962, the state parliament debated the need for a second airport. It was decided that it should be built because Kingsford Smith had little room to expand. However, the need was not urgent, and it was decided to defer the planning and construction for at least 10 years. A new government body, the State Planning Authority (SPA), was created to oversee the future development of the region. The SPA had the primary task of planning the development of the new airport and the development of housing sites in the Western Sydney area to suit the growth of Sydney as the major city in Australia.
The SPA created a "no development zone" around the Badgerys Creek area in 1964 that would last for 20 years. This would give the government time to plan the airport and the infrastructure for it. This included roads and rail, and flight paths. Sydney was growing fast. Without the SPA, the area would have been subdivided and redeveloped and the airport would have cost far more to build.
There was a strong reaction from farmers who owned land in Badgerys Creek. Some wanted to subdivide and take a profit; some wanted to stay and farm the land. Every change of government saw a change to the airport planning and further delays while the politicians tried to buy the now valuable land at a low price and dislodge those who could remember back to 1962 and could see a huge profit from holding out.
Around Badgerys Creek, 20-litre paint tin lids with crude messages for the SPA were nailed to trees and power poles. These messages stayed until they rusted away and fell off, some lasting 20 years. The planning for second airports in Melbourne and Sydney started at the same time, but Melbourne opened its airport in 1970.
At the time of the original planning, the Badgerys Creek flight paths were over farm land to the south and over the sparsely populated suburb of Doonside to the north. Aircraft noise would not have been a problem and land would have been marked as "aircraft noise affected", had the plans been revealed.