DEPUTY Premier Jeff Seeney has tabled 40-pages of tweets in State Parliament about the Brisbane Airport delays and noted not one was posted by Federal Labor MP Kevin Rudd.
For the third day in a row, Mr Seeney has blamed Mr Rudd for the ongoing delays at the airport, because of his opposition to building a second runway.
Although Mr Rudd has denied he has actively opposed the infrastructure since 2001, Mr Seeney said it was no coincidence that the runway had not been built since the Federal Labor MP was elected Prime Minister in 2007.
Today Mr Seeney said The Courier-Mail campaign for action on the issue had elicited a big response on Twitter with hundreds of tweets posted using the hash tag #bnelateagain.
"But there is not one tweet from Kevin Rudd. Kevin Rudd is Australia's foremost political twitterer," said Mr Seeney to raucous laughter in Parliament.
"Kevin Rudd has put out 7703 tweets but he can't do one about the Brisbane Airport issue. Not one. He follows 370,000 people, and he has over a million followers. None of them know what Kevin Rudd thinks about the Brisbane Airport issue because Kevin Rudd has become Twitter mute.
"He has become shy about expressing his view about an issue that 600 or 700 other Queenslanders have felt the need to express a view about."
He said Queenslanders deserved to hear from Kevin Rudd about what he thinks should happen at Brisbane Airport.
Earlier, it was reported that airport chiefs warned in 1999 that Brisbane faced an economic disaster if a new parallel runway was not built within eight years.
Airport delays
But despite their own dire predictions, Brisbane Airport Corporation put the vital project into a 13-year holding pattern.
Site works did not begin until last year and now its construction is up in the air again, caught in a deadlock over funding, while frustrated passengers fume over worsening flight congestion.
In an exclusive interview, former long-time chief executive officer Koen Rooijmans has revealed that despite more than a decade of planning the new runway, the airport's operators never set a firm date to start work.
As far back as 1999, Mr Rooijmans warned that the hub would hit capacity by 2007. "I think it would be a major disaster in economic development in this area (not to act)," he said at the time.
Have you experienced delays at Brisbane Airport? Share your story on Twitter with the hashtag #BNELATEAGAIN or email cmonline@qnp.newsltd.com.au
He was headhunted from Dutch airline KLM to lead the airport's development after BAC paid the Federal Government $1.4 billion in 1997 for a 49-year lease with a 50-year option.
At his first press conference in 1997, Mr Rooijmans immediately flagged the need for a second major runway.
". . . In this business, you have to think and plan far ahead in time," he said.
Brisbane Airport's existing runways, and the proposed parallel runway.
"The timing was always depending on the real pace of growth, not a fixed forecast. Passenger movements and airline growth fluctuate from year to year," he said.
Mr Rooijmans also confirmed that the airport operator never developed a clear proposal for how they would pay for the runway.
"There was no fixed model for funding," he said.
Construction started on the parallel runway last August but work could grind to a halt by the middle of this year with the BAC demanding airlines contribute a quarter of the total cost through increased per-passenger landing charges.
The airlines refuse, saying it is unreasonable to expect them and passengers to pay for infrastructure for years before it can be used.
BAC says without an agreement, it will not commit to the $500 million phase two construction.
Have you experienced delays at Brisbane Airport? Share your story on Twitter with the hashtag #BNELATEAGAIN or email cmonline@qnp.newsltd.com.au
In Parliament, Mr Seeney said the Federal Government had failed to ensure BAC had put services ahead of profit.
Mr Nicholls said the airport had to live up to its obligation to deliver the second runway.
Federal Transport and Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese has put the BAC on notice that it could be in breach of its lease obligations if it fails to deliver the runway on time.
Additional reporting, Daryl Passmore
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