Australia redeclares Launceston Airport as a security controlled airport

Launceston Airport has been redeclared a security controlled airport by a delegate of the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, in a notice that also establishes a fresh airside area for the northern Tasmanian facility. The decision, numbered NTC-31520, was signed on 23 October 2026 and registered in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette on 29 October 2026 as C2026G00702, taking effect on publication.

The instrument rests on subsection 28(2) of the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004, the provision under which the Commonwealth declares airports subject to security-controlled status. It carries three operative elements: the revocation of the earlier declaration, the new declaration with a redrawn boundary, and the creation of an airside area under section 29 of the same Act. Both the airport boundary and the airside zone are defined by a map attached to and forming part of the notice.

What the notice does

The delegate first revokes notice NTC-30498, which had declared Launceston Airport as a security controlled airport and was published in the Gazette on 21 May 2026 under reference C2026G00290. That revocation clears the way for the replacement instrument rather than leaving two overlapping declarations in force.

The new declaration follows immediately: Launceston Airport is a security controlled airport, with its boundaries those shown on the attached map. In the same instrument the delegate establishes, in accordance with section 29 of the Act, an airside area for the airport — the area identified as such on the same attached map.

The three steps are therefore:

• Revocation of NTC-30498 (C2026G00290, 21 May 2026).
• Declaration of Launceston Airport as a security controlled airport under subsection 28(2), with boundaries fixed by the attached map.
• Establishment of an airside area under section 29, delineated on that map.

Who signed and when it binds

The notice is signed by Gerome Balangue, identified by Position No. 48000573, as a Delegate of the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs. It is dated 23 October 2026, six days before its registration in the Gazette on 29 October 2026.

Commencement is tied expressly to publication: the notice begins on the day it appears in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. An accompanying note states that the notice remains in force until it is otherwise revoked in writing and that revocation is subsequently published in the Gazette — meaning the arrangement has no fixed expiry and can be altered only by a further published instrument.

Why the perimeter matters

Because the airport boundary and the airside area are both set by the attached map, the practical effect is a redrawing of the line that separates landside from airside at Launceston Airport. Security-controlled status is what brings an airport within the Act’s screening, access-control and aviation security obligations, and the airside area is the zone in which those controls apply most directly.

The notice binds the airport operator together with the airlines and ground handling businesses that work on the site. For travellers departing or arriving through Launceston, the visible consequence is the location of screening points and the extent of the areas to which only screened passengers and authorised staff have access.

A steady stream of redeclarations

Launceston Airport joins a run of Australian airports whose declarations have been replaced in recent months, a pattern in which older notices are revoked and reissued with updated boundary maps. In the preceding week alone, notices covering Rockhampton Airport (NTC-30900, revoked and replaced on 27 October 2026) and Karratha Airport (NTC-19570, originally published in 2020) followed the same template, as did earlier instruments for Canberra Airport, Moranbah Airport, Coffs Harbour Airport, Sunshine Coast Airport, Dubbo Regional Airport and Emerald Airport.

For northern Tasmania the significance is local and immediate. The redrawn boundary and the newly defined airside area reset the physical basis on which screening and access rules at Launceston Airport operate, and they do so from the moment the notice was published.

Source: Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, Government Notices, No. C2026G00702, 29 October 2026, Section I, p. 1 (official reference: NTC-31520 / C2026G00702).