GOOD SENSE MUST PREVAIL

GOLD Coast and Tweed residents have long grown used to recalcitrant groups refusing to take “no’’ for an answer.

In the case of the Gold Coast Airport and the long-running, frustrating fight to have an instrument landing system installed, opponents continue to find new ways to try to stymie the project.

Such is the process of democracy. As great statesmen have noted in the past, the democratic system might not be perfect but it is the best available, even when some of the players can be tiresome.

This time, it is the Tweed Shire Mayor Katie Milne and some of her councillors setting out to block what the majority agree is a system that should be installed for the sake of public and passenger safety and to limit the number of flight diversions or cancellations when rain reduces visibility for landing.

An ILS will not just benefit the Gold Coast. It is important for the Tweed too.

But Cr Milne and others have seized on what they think are breaches involving clearing and earthworks outside the footprint agreed on when the Tweed council approved the airport’s development application to install the technology. The airport denies any such breach. The council is writing to Federal Infrastructure Minister Darren Chester, whose office has already told the Bulletin this week that while the property is part of NSW Crown land, the works being undertaken have been approved by Canberra and that approval of the major development plan was backed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in March.

Councillors who missed out on voting against Cr Milne’s anti-ILS bid will put up a rescission motion at a meeting today.

It is to be hoped common sense prevails, just as it did in July when Cr Milne attempted another controversial manoeuvre when she tried to stop Warner Bros filming outdoor scenes at Hastings Point for the Aquaman movie.

Cr Milne declared the shire should not be “blinded by Hollywood’’ and tried to block access to what she said was an environmentally sensitive headland.

Her stance ignored the Tweed’s need for job-generating projects and the region’s close links to the film industry. Fortunately, it was overturned by other councillors who had no difficulty seeing the benefit.