I spoke last week at a meeting organised by the Brisbane Flight Paths Community Association to demand a curfew on planes flying over Brisbane. These are mostly either international flights (subsidised by the state government) to promote tourism) or overnight freight, for which there is a fairly modest convenience benefit

By contrast, the adverse health effects and sleep disruption associated with night-time airport noise have huge costs, running into the billions, whether you estimate these directly or via effects on land values.

Unfortunately, this cuts very little ice with our political class, most of whom are frequent fliers and only a few of whom are among the hundreds of thousands of Brisbane residents affected by noise. Only the Greens have stood on the side of residents, and only when voters desert Labor en masse will they win enough seats to influence policy here.

You can see my report for BFPCA here, and my slides here.