00:00:13
S1: Well. Last week we had a great chat regarding the Melbourne Airport expansion or extension with Rosie often. Let's today speak to Romina Carmelo from tea, who's got some interesting news regarding noise sharing. Romina, lovely to meet you and thank you for your time.
00:00:29
S2: Thank you so much for having me, Peter.
00:00:32
S1: Yeah, well, I must admit, before I was contacted by your group, I had never really thought about it. But I guess it kind of makes sense if the if there's noise there, it should be shared around.
00:00:41
S2: Absolutely, absolutely. And it is something that we are doing a bit of an education piece as well as gathering feedback. So the concept of a noise sharing plan, it's not new, but it is something that's being brought in for the Melbourne Airport third runway project. So once the third runway is operational, um, there will be a noise sharing plan that will be put into effect. Um, and essentially if you're asking me, well, what is a noise sharing plan? Um it is the parameters in which, in which air traffic control um can use different runway operating modes and flight paths to share aircraft noise across Melbourne.
00:01:28
S1: And I guess it's all about innocence being egalitarian or being democratic. Uh, you know, rather than one area sort of taking the load, you're kind of trying to share it, as the name suggests.
00:01:39
S2: Yeah, exactly. There's one piece around noise sharing that I probably want to point out, and it's really important. Important is that you can't share all noise equally, but you can distribute it as much as possible. And the constraints to that really are around safety and weather and operational matters as well. But safety is the number one, um, piece of importance for um, air traffic control and for Melbourne Airport. Then there is also the element of the weather. So you can only really land when you come into the wind. So you land into the wind. You take off into the wind. So depending on the, um, the weather patterns at the time really does affect how an airport operates. And thus we talk about operating modes and then the flight paths that come from that.
00:02:36
S1: And obviously those weather conditions can change, uh, quite, uh, quite easily and at a whim, as it were.
00:02:42
S2: Absolutely. Uh, if you've ever been flying and suddenly you're circling, it could be because they might be changing the runway modes because the wind has changed.
00:02:51
S1: So you've started some consultation, you've got some more coming up very soon, but you started some consultation back last year.
00:02:58
S2: Yeah, absolutely. In 2025, we launched the engagement for the noise sharing plan, and we went out for about eight weeks and we held 24 community sessions. Um, we had a further 14 kind of general stakeholder sessions and they were with um groups such as general aviation or smaller or different airports across Melbourne. Um, and it was really good. We spoke to over 500 people and we had over 500 responses to the survey.
00:03:29
S1: Is that good? I mean that I guess that's a lot, but it doesn't seem overly much or I mean, I guess, you know, people kind of accepting of the fact that this is something that's going to happen, it's going to be good for the economy, good for the state, good, good for, you know, Melbourne overall. So we kind of make the most of it or make the best of it. How does that kind of all play out do you feel?
00:03:50
S2: I think there's advantages, advantages and disadvantages for everyone, but it's really important to know that this was the first discussion in the engagement process for the knowledge sharing plan. So having a community members fill out the survey and having them talk to us was actually really important. And we're building the profile and we're, we're doing even more engagement this time around. So from the 10th of August, which is Monday the 10th of August. Next week we will be launching, um, the consultation around the draft noise sharing plan. So all the engagement that we did, uh, late last year or from October last year for those eight weeks, we've pulled together all that information and we're working with our partners on this. And we have developed a draft noise sharing plan. And that whole draft will be placed on the major Projects hub on the Melbourne Airport website for review and for feedback from community members and from stakeholders.
00:04:56
S1: Now here we are. It's 2026. Obviously, the airport, I think is scheduled to open in 2031, so pardon the pun, but there's a bit of runway. By the same token, I guess these sort of things have got to be sorted out well before then, well before the first plane takes off from the new runway.
00:05:10
S2: Absolutely. These things take time, and with safety being the number one priority, you have to make sure that everything works Exactly as it needs to. So there will be engagement now and then there'll probably be another round of engagement, highly likely next year at the same time. So around, um, maybe August, September, we're hoping where we will finalize the know sharing plan and put that out for consultation for some final comments. So in each round that we go out to community, we can demonstrate what we've heard and how we've actually included it in the draft share sharing plan.
00:05:47
S1: So with the 500 plus submissions last year, you kind of get a bit of a trend. I mean, I guess it depends on where people live in relation to where the expansion is going to take place. I guess in a sense there's 500 different opinions from 500 submissions. I guess it's pretty hard to kind of correlate and kind of either if you like a prioritize or, you know, put in order what, what is sort of needing most, most attention soonest, if I can put it that way.
00:06:16
S2: No, absolutely. And there was feedback from not over my house through to can we, can we have a better interactive tool or can we have more regular public reporting? Um, or where are the placement of noise monitors? So the feedback was varied, um, and really interesting in how we were able to incorporate as much of it as possible into the draft noise sharing plan.
00:06:44
S1: Yeah, not over my house. It kind of gives a whole new meaning to Nimby, doesn't it? Not over my house or is it not me or something? But anyway, nom h or something. Yeah. Um, so what about us from next week, August the 10th, as you say, what kind of happens in this period?
00:07:00
S2: Okay, so everything will launch on the website first of all. So on the noise, Melbourne airport, um, major projects hub there will be the draft noise sharing plan for review. There's also summary documents and documents that relate to certain geographic areas in Melbourne, so there's one for north, south, east and west. Because the noise sharing plan is is quite a detailed document. So we've been able to develop some summary documents. So they're easy to um look at and to review. We will also have webinars um online and there's two coming up. So the first one will actually be next Wednesday the 12th of August.
00:07:44
S1: Okay.
00:07:44
S2: And they are recorded and then placed on the website. And not long after that, it's an opportunity to listen to a lot of the project information and to get a really good summary, but also there's opportunities to, um, ask questions. And you can do that by typing in the Q and A. Um, and then we'll have another session online on the 1st of September. But we also have 17 in-person sessions across Melbourne from Romsey to Mentone West to Hoppers Crossing. It's all on the major projects hub, the website. But if you can't get to the website or you're having a bit of trouble navigating the website, you can always email us with your details in your suburb and we can say, okay, well, this might be the most appropriate, um, session for you to get to.
00:08:39
S1: What about in terms of, um, I guess the, the, the clout of the, uh, of the submissions, if you like. I mean, you know, without putting words in your mouth, I guess a lot of the sort of stuff has probably been predetermined. Uh, is it kind of, you know, a bit of, um, not window dressing, but you know what I mean? Like is a lot of the stuff kind of laid down and pretty hard and fast. And then we're kind of, uh, you know, tinkering at the edges in a way, with some of the changes that that people might not be happy with.
00:09:06
S2: There's some changes that people might not be happy with. And there's some changes that I think some communities will be pretty, um, pleased with. So some flight pads, um, have moved higher, which means that noise is less. It doesn't mean that it's gone. It just means that it's, um, less, uh, that you can hear some, um, flight paths have moved, so there might be some more impact. But really this is around trying to give air traffic control as many operating modes or as many runway modes as possible to choose from in the areas that are outside of peak. So currently there's eight runway modes that air traffic control. And I'm getting into the weeds here. Bear with me. There's eight, um, ways that the runways can operate and therefore flight paths that go with that. They will take away one and add another seven. So by the end of it, air traffic control will have 14 ways. So that really, that really does double the opportunity for noise sharing.
00:10:08
S1: Yeah. I guess it's, um, that's what the whole project is about is they're kind of sharing the noise as it were. So next Monday, the 10th is when, uh, submissions get underway. How long are they kind of open for.
00:10:22
S2: So our engagement goes for eight weeks, and on the 2nd of October will be the last day for submissions or feedback. Not not submissions, but feedback, um, to be supplied to the project team. And the best way to do that is via the survey. If you can't get to the survey, you can email the team at engagement@gmail.com and we can give all those details to you, Peter, so that you can put it online for your listeners. And that's a really important that's eight weeks for you to look at to review the information, get more information from the project team if you need to, and then provide a response or provide feedback as needed.
00:11:07
S1: Those in person events, if you like, are they are attended by invitation or by a booking or can you just rock up?
00:11:15
S2: You can absolutely just turn up. They're all at accessible locations close to public transport. They're at a variety of different times of the day and there are cross probably of the eight weeks are probably six week period in between all of that. And that's just to make sure that there's a nice, um, sharing of the time of when these events happen. So all of that information is online and um, sessions are sometimes on the weekend, sometimes, um, during the week, um, in mornings and evenings as well. And as we said all across Melbourne.
00:11:51
S1: Just before we go, just right at the beginning, just, just for clarification, who is or who are GHD.
00:11:56
S2: So I kind of skipped over that to get into the interesting stuff, which is the knowledge sharing plan, but um, GHD and um, we're working with a company called Trax. We've been working together to produce this knowledge sharing plan. And at GHD, we're focusing on the engagement. Now you're, you're probably wondering why isn't it Melbourne Airport, part of the conditions of approval of their major development plan a couple of years ago was to have an independent, um, uh, technical experts come in and do, uh, the noise sharing plan and the engagement, um, that is independent of Melbourne Airport or independent of others. So we run this process alongside with lots of stakeholders, but we do run this process independently so that there is um, limited influence on noise sharing. As I said, the biggest influence is safety and weather.
00:12:51
S1: Okay. Well, I think, uh, when we're in an aeroplane, if safety is number one, we're all just relaxing a little bit more, holding on to those, uh, holding on to those arms just a little bit less tightly, less, less white knuckles.
00:13:04
S2: Just a little bit romantic.
00:13:06
S1: Give us those details again and we will put them up with our show notes because, uh, you know, people might not be in a position to take them down. So give us to them now. And as I said to Rosie last week, um, you're going to make my job easier because I think we might have to get you also back on the next, uh, in the next few, uh, or next five years on a semi-regular basis as this happens. So. But one of the details is from August the 10th.
00:13:30
S2: Yeah. So August the 10th, we will start our engagement on the noise sharing plan. There are a variety of in-person and online sessions. Yeah, that's all right. And get in touch with us by the Major Project Hub. Or you can email us at engagement@g.com.
00:13:51
S1: Romina. Very good. Uh, introduction. Thank you so much for that. We look forward to hearing more. And, uh, August the 10th is a big day. I'm sure you're going to be pretty busy over the next little while. So thank you for making a bit of time. And as I said, I'm sure we'll get you back and get some updates as time rolls on.
00:14:06
S2: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Peter.
00:14:08
S1: That's Romina Cavallo there. From looking at noise sharing as far as the Melbourne airport goes, all those details up with our show notes. And I'll say it often, but if you do have any difficulty. 1300 847 466 contacts. Here's the radio station. And if we can help you out, we certainly will.
S1: Well. Last week we had a great chat regarding the Melbourne Airport expansion or extension with Rosie often. Let's today speak to Romina Carmelo from tea, who's got some interesting news regarding noise sharing. Romina, lovely to meet you and thank you for your time.
00:00:29
S2: Thank you so much for having me, Peter.
00:00:32
S1: Yeah, well, I must admit, before I was contacted by your group, I had never really thought about it. But I guess it kind of makes sense if the if there's noise there, it should be shared around.
00:00:41
S2: Absolutely, absolutely. And it is something that we are doing a bit of an education piece as well as gathering feedback. So the concept of a noise sharing plan, it's not new, but it is something that's being brought in for the Melbourne Airport third runway project. So once the third runway is operational, um, there will be a noise sharing plan that will be put into effect. Um, and essentially if you're asking me, well, what is a noise sharing plan? Um it is the parameters in which, in which air traffic control um can use different runway operating modes and flight paths to share aircraft noise across Melbourne.
00:01:28
S1: And I guess it's all about innocence being egalitarian or being democratic. Uh, you know, rather than one area sort of taking the load, you're kind of trying to share it, as the name suggests.
00:01:39
S2: Yeah, exactly. There's one piece around noise sharing that I probably want to point out, and it's really important. Important is that you can't share all noise equally, but you can distribute it as much as possible. And the constraints to that really are around safety and weather and operational matters as well. But safety is the number one, um, piece of importance for um, air traffic control and for Melbourne Airport. Then there is also the element of the weather. So you can only really land when you come into the wind. So you land into the wind. You take off into the wind. So depending on the, um, the weather patterns at the time really does affect how an airport operates. And thus we talk about operating modes and then the flight paths that come from that.
00:02:36
S1: And obviously those weather conditions can change, uh, quite, uh, quite easily and at a whim, as it were.
00:02:42
S2: Absolutely. Uh, if you've ever been flying and suddenly you're circling, it could be because they might be changing the runway modes because the wind has changed.
00:02:51
S1: So you've started some consultation, you've got some more coming up very soon, but you started some consultation back last year.
00:02:58
S2: Yeah, absolutely. In 2025, we launched the engagement for the noise sharing plan, and we went out for about eight weeks and we held 24 community sessions. Um, we had a further 14 kind of general stakeholder sessions and they were with um groups such as general aviation or smaller or different airports across Melbourne. Um, and it was really good. We spoke to over 500 people and we had over 500 responses to the survey.
00:03:29
S1: Is that good? I mean that I guess that's a lot, but it doesn't seem overly much or I mean, I guess, you know, people kind of accepting of the fact that this is something that's going to happen, it's going to be good for the economy, good for the state, good, good for, you know, Melbourne overall. So we kind of make the most of it or make the best of it. How does that kind of all play out do you feel?
00:03:50
S2: I think there's advantages, advantages and disadvantages for everyone, but it's really important to know that this was the first discussion in the engagement process for the knowledge sharing plan. So having a community members fill out the survey and having them talk to us was actually really important. And we're building the profile and we're, we're doing even more engagement this time around. So from the 10th of August, which is Monday the 10th of August. Next week we will be launching, um, the consultation around the draft noise sharing plan. So all the engagement that we did, uh, late last year or from October last year for those eight weeks, we've pulled together all that information and we're working with our partners on this. And we have developed a draft noise sharing plan. And that whole draft will be placed on the major Projects hub on the Melbourne Airport website for review and for feedback from community members and from stakeholders.
00:04:56
S1: Now here we are. It's 2026. Obviously, the airport, I think is scheduled to open in 2031, so pardon the pun, but there's a bit of runway. By the same token, I guess these sort of things have got to be sorted out well before then, well before the first plane takes off from the new runway.
00:05:10
S2: Absolutely. These things take time, and with safety being the number one priority, you have to make sure that everything works Exactly as it needs to. So there will be engagement now and then there'll probably be another round of engagement, highly likely next year at the same time. So around, um, maybe August, September, we're hoping where we will finalize the know sharing plan and put that out for consultation for some final comments. So in each round that we go out to community, we can demonstrate what we've heard and how we've actually included it in the draft share sharing plan.
00:05:47
S1: So with the 500 plus submissions last year, you kind of get a bit of a trend. I mean, I guess it depends on where people live in relation to where the expansion is going to take place. I guess in a sense there's 500 different opinions from 500 submissions. I guess it's pretty hard to kind of correlate and kind of either if you like a prioritize or, you know, put in order what, what is sort of needing most, most attention soonest, if I can put it that way.
00:06:16
S2: No, absolutely. And there was feedback from not over my house through to can we, can we have a better interactive tool or can we have more regular public reporting? Um, or where are the placement of noise monitors? So the feedback was varied, um, and really interesting in how we were able to incorporate as much of it as possible into the draft noise sharing plan.
00:06:44
S1: Yeah, not over my house. It kind of gives a whole new meaning to Nimby, doesn't it? Not over my house or is it not me or something? But anyway, nom h or something. Yeah. Um, so what about us from next week, August the 10th, as you say, what kind of happens in this period?
00:07:00
S2: Okay, so everything will launch on the website first of all. So on the noise, Melbourne airport, um, major projects hub there will be the draft noise sharing plan for review. There's also summary documents and documents that relate to certain geographic areas in Melbourne, so there's one for north, south, east and west. Because the noise sharing plan is is quite a detailed document. So we've been able to develop some summary documents. So they're easy to um look at and to review. We will also have webinars um online and there's two coming up. So the first one will actually be next Wednesday the 12th of August.
00:07:44
S1: Okay.
00:07:44
S2: And they are recorded and then placed on the website. And not long after that, it's an opportunity to listen to a lot of the project information and to get a really good summary, but also there's opportunities to, um, ask questions. And you can do that by typing in the Q and A. Um, and then we'll have another session online on the 1st of September. But we also have 17 in-person sessions across Melbourne from Romsey to Mentone West to Hoppers Crossing. It's all on the major projects hub, the website. But if you can't get to the website or you're having a bit of trouble navigating the website, you can always email us with your details in your suburb and we can say, okay, well, this might be the most appropriate, um, session for you to get to.
00:08:39
S1: What about in terms of, um, I guess the, the, the clout of the, uh, of the submissions, if you like. I mean, you know, without putting words in your mouth, I guess a lot of the sort of stuff has probably been predetermined. Uh, is it kind of, you know, a bit of, um, not window dressing, but you know what I mean? Like is a lot of the stuff kind of laid down and pretty hard and fast. And then we're kind of, uh, you know, tinkering at the edges in a way, with some of the changes that that people might not be happy with.
00:09:06
S2: There's some changes that people might not be happy with. And there's some changes that I think some communities will be pretty, um, pleased with. So some flight pads, um, have moved higher, which means that noise is less. It doesn't mean that it's gone. It just means that it's, um, less, uh, that you can hear some, um, flight paths have moved, so there might be some more impact. But really this is around trying to give air traffic control as many operating modes or as many runway modes as possible to choose from in the areas that are outside of peak. So currently there's eight runway modes that air traffic control. And I'm getting into the weeds here. Bear with me. There's eight, um, ways that the runways can operate and therefore flight paths that go with that. They will take away one and add another seven. So by the end of it, air traffic control will have 14 ways. So that really, that really does double the opportunity for noise sharing.
00:10:08
S1: Yeah. I guess it's, um, that's what the whole project is about is they're kind of sharing the noise as it were. So next Monday, the 10th is when, uh, submissions get underway. How long are they kind of open for.
00:10:22
S2: So our engagement goes for eight weeks, and on the 2nd of October will be the last day for submissions or feedback. Not not submissions, but feedback, um, to be supplied to the project team. And the best way to do that is via the survey. If you can't get to the survey, you can email the team at engagement@gmail.com and we can give all those details to you, Peter, so that you can put it online for your listeners. And that's a really important that's eight weeks for you to look at to review the information, get more information from the project team if you need to, and then provide a response or provide feedback as needed.
00:11:07
S1: Those in person events, if you like, are they are attended by invitation or by a booking or can you just rock up?
00:11:15
S2: You can absolutely just turn up. They're all at accessible locations close to public transport. They're at a variety of different times of the day and there are cross probably of the eight weeks are probably six week period in between all of that. And that's just to make sure that there's a nice, um, sharing of the time of when these events happen. So all of that information is online and um, sessions are sometimes on the weekend, sometimes, um, during the week, um, in mornings and evenings as well. And as we said all across Melbourne.
00:11:51
S1: Just before we go, just right at the beginning, just, just for clarification, who is or who are GHD.
00:11:56
S2: So I kind of skipped over that to get into the interesting stuff, which is the knowledge sharing plan, but um, GHD and um, we're working with a company called Trax. We've been working together to produce this knowledge sharing plan. And at GHD, we're focusing on the engagement. Now you're, you're probably wondering why isn't it Melbourne Airport, part of the conditions of approval of their major development plan a couple of years ago was to have an independent, um, uh, technical experts come in and do, uh, the noise sharing plan and the engagement, um, that is independent of Melbourne Airport or independent of others. So we run this process alongside with lots of stakeholders, but we do run this process independently so that there is um, limited influence on noise sharing. As I said, the biggest influence is safety and weather.
00:12:51
S1: Okay. Well, I think, uh, when we're in an aeroplane, if safety is number one, we're all just relaxing a little bit more, holding on to those, uh, holding on to those arms just a little bit less tightly, less, less white knuckles.
00:13:04
S2: Just a little bit romantic.
00:13:06
S1: Give us those details again and we will put them up with our show notes because, uh, you know, people might not be in a position to take them down. So give us to them now. And as I said to Rosie last week, um, you're going to make my job easier because I think we might have to get you also back on the next, uh, in the next few, uh, or next five years on a semi-regular basis as this happens. So. But one of the details is from August the 10th.
00:13:30
S2: Yeah. So August the 10th, we will start our engagement on the noise sharing plan. There are a variety of in-person and online sessions. Yeah, that's all right. And get in touch with us by the Major Project Hub. Or you can email us at engagement@g.com.
00:13:51
S1: Romina. Very good. Uh, introduction. Thank you so much for that. We look forward to hearing more. And, uh, August the 10th is a big day. I'm sure you're going to be pretty busy over the next little while. So thank you for making a bit of time. And as I said, I'm sure we'll get you back and get some updates as time rolls on.
00:14:06
S2: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Peter.
00:14:08
S1: That's Romina Cavallo there. From looking at noise sharing as far as the Melbourne airport goes, all those details up with our show notes. And I'll say it often, but if you do have any difficulty. 1300 847 466 contacts. Here's the radio station. And if we can help you out, we certainly will.
