OUT, DAMNED QUIET.(Ghasthurst airport planning, Australia)(Brief Article)

The row over a third airport for Ghasthurst rages on, with residents and local amenity groups ranged firmly against the proposal and the Coalition for a Better Ghasthurst pressing for an early decision in favour.

The Coalition has been formed by the two bodies who have been loudest in campaigning for a "yes" decision, the newly privatised airport-operating company Terminals R Us and the Australian Institute of Noise. The Institute, whose marketing arm was recently re-branded OzRacket, believes that a third airport--and a fourth and a fifth--"is imperative for Ghasthurst on environmental and social responsibility grounds."

"Everyone knows that silence leads to introspection and introspection can be unhealthy for the personality, leading an individual to be a stunted, shrinking violet instead of asserting his or her democratic right to be heard at all times," bawls Bryce Harley-Davidson, the Institute's campaign co-ordinator. "Silence is the enemy of the free society and must be opposed at all costs. Aircraft taking off and landing twenty-four hours a day can only do inestimable good to people in the community exhibiting antisocial tendencies towards shyness and non-assertiveness."

The airport campaign is being supported as well by the Ghasthurst branch of the Young Business Leaders' Association who point out that traffic in central Ghasthurst is now so "hopelessly choked"--mainly by their Porsches--that it would be quicker to fly around the city from one airport to another.

Ghasthurst's existing airports are admittedly small, and certainly not big enough to cater for a substantial ...