Reason for starting this blog - "a fair go for Western Sydney"

Up front: I'm commissioning this blog not to take state my political position but to present the facts around the airport and what it may suggest in terms of the impact of the airport and its viability. I will present the facts from a variety of different sources and present my analysis and opinion based on the information I have.

Now to the matter of this post. The article in particular that made me take the leap to start this blog was not one of the typical newspaper articles in the local Daily Telegraph who by the way are actively campaigning for the airport. It was instead this editorial from the SMH funnily enough titled "a fair go for western Sydney":

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/nsw-premier-mike-bairds-priority-a-fair-go-for-western-sydney-20140824-107klp.html

In response I considered writing a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald outlining my position which in a nutshell is this -

Without any information on flight paths, runway configuration, noise mitigation plans, etc. and without knowing the effect on local residents how can you say confidently that this will be good for the region?

I wrote the letter but didn't send it for many reasons. Some are:

• I work in a technical engineering based industry; one where your name means a lot including but not limited to your Google search results. Being against something right now could disadvantage myself and my family in the future.
• I think the message matters more than who I am; especially since I'm not sponsored by anyone nor working for anyone. I didn't think this was needed information.
• The letter even condensed breached their word limits by a slim margin.
• My letter was more to inspire the Herald to do some actual research rather than directly present information that in my opinion been selectively presented to support the airport (e.g. displayed runway layout (Option A in the EIS) in most newspaper articles does not elaborate that this isn't the final runway and that some people think other runway layouts are in fact more likely).

The letter is below. There is a lot more to cover; and some to elaborate on - remember this was condensed to try and send to a newspaper. Will do that in future blog posts.

"In your editorial on the 25th of August you correctly stated that many people choose Western Sydney for its quiet open spaces and family friendliness. You then go on and mention the "much needed" airport at Badgerys Creek. Without any definite information yet released on flight paths, airport design and so on how can the Herald confidently state that the proposed airport as a whole will be a "fair go for Western Sydney"?
Having recently attended the UWS Community forum on the airport proposal to get more information one major concern that kept being brought up by the audience was how this proposal would affect the quality of life of the local community. In particular it seems most of the Penrith and Camden area will likely be in the main flight paths if what they believed holds true. This will no doubt result in a lot of negatives locally including a lot less sleep for those aspirational working families you mentioned. In other words this proposal potentially threatens to jeopardise the qualities you mentioned make the area desirable. The job benefits also seemed questionable in light of the recent Qantas announcements of job cuts and losses from both local airlines.
I agree we need infrastructure investment; more rail and road, more investment into health, the arts and so on. An airport as it is proposed currently however is probably not on that list."