By Geoff Francis

SYDNEY -- On April 11, Sydney airport's east-west runway was reopened. According to Prime Minister John Howard, this fulfilled his pre-election promise to share around the burden of aircraft noise.

This is far from true. Under the ministerial directive, the east-west runway is available for a maximum of five hours' use a day (noon to 3pm and 8pm to 10pm), and even then only if traffic is exceptionally light. At most, this runway will carry 10% of Sydney airport's traffic. Most of the growing amount of air traffic will continue to be directed over the densely populated inner-western suburbs.

The Liberals' promise to "share around the noise" largely accounted for the No Aircraft Noise party's worse than expected showing in the March 2 federal election. The promise of less noise lured many residents into voting for the Liberals.

NAN's comparatively poor results -- especially in the federal seat of Grayndler -- can also be attributed to unprincipled preference deals by the ALP. For example, despite a history of posing as a friend of the gay community and women, ALP candidate (now MP) for Grayndler Anthony Albanese exchanged preferences with Fred Nile's Call to Australia. Similarly, the Liberal and Australian Democrat how-to-vote cards put the ALP ahead of NAN.

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