This page provides details of directions and declarations under the regulatory regime that has operated since 1 July 2002. Also provided is information on the previous regulatory framework and documents detailing price assessments completed under the earlier framework.
Current regulatory regime
On 30 April 2007 the Australian Government responded to the Productivity Commission (PC) inquiry report entitled Review of Price Regulation of Airport Services, released on 27 April 2007. The government decided to continue the previous approach to regulation of aeronautical prices at the major airports.
The PC is currently conducting an inquiry into the economic regulation of Australian airports. Information about the inquiry is available on the PC's web site.
Airport Car Parking
On 7 April 2008 the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs directed the ACCC (through Direction no.31 under the Trade Practices Act 1974) to monitor prices, costs and profits of car parking services at Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne (Tullamarine), Perth and Sydney (Kingsford Smith) airports.
Following the report in 2002 by the Productivity Commission on price regulation of airport services, the government replaced price caps with price monitoring.
Prior to 1 July 2002 the ACCC was responsible for prices surveillance of the following airports: Adelaide, Alice Springs, Brisbane, Canberra, Coolangatta, Darwin, Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Townsville. These airports were declared under the Prices Surveillance Act 1983 (which has since been repealed and replaced with Part VIIA of the Trade Practices Act 1974, known as the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 from 1 January 2011) and, with the exception of Sydney airport, were subject to CPI-X price caps.
