Hobart Airport redeclared security controlled airport under aviation security law

A delegate of the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs has revoked and replaced the instrument declaring Hobart Airport a security controlled airport, redrawing the airport’s boundaries and re-establishing its airside area with effect from publication. The decision is set out in notice NTC-31732, published in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette as C2026G00731 on 13 November 2026, and signed on 12 November 2026.

The instrument is made under subsection 28(2) of the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004, the Commonwealth statute that governs security at Australian airports. It was executed by Gerome Balangue (Position No. 48000573), a delegate of the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, the portfolio responsible for aviation security regulation.

Three operative decisions in one notice

The notice does three things in a single instrument:

• It revokes notice NTC-30879, which had declared Hobart Airport a security controlled airport and was published in the Gazette on 24 July 2026 under reference C2026G00480.
• It declares Hobart Airport a security controlled airport, with the airport’s boundaries shown on a map attached to the notice and forming part of it.
• It establishes, in accordance with section 29 of the Act, an airside area for Hobart Airport, being the area indicated as the airside area on that same attached map.

Because the boundaries and the airside area are defined by reference to the attached map rather than by written metes and bounds, the geographic extent of the declaration is fixed by the cartographic attachment, which forms part of the legal instrument.

Commencement and duration

The notice commences upon publication in the Gazette, meaning the revocation of NTC-30879 and the new declaration took effect on 13 November 2026, the date the instrument was registered.

The instrument states that it remains in force until otherwise revoked in writing and upon subsequent publication in the Gazette. There is no sunset date and no transitional period: the replacement is immediate rather than phased.

The Gazette text also records the standing definitions applied to the instrument: “Gazette” means the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, and the declaration is expressly tied to publication in that vehicle as the trigger for both its commencement and its future revocation.

A rolling redraw of Australian airport boundaries

The Hobart instrument follows the same template used for other airports in the same gazettal cycle. A day earlier, on 11 November 2026, the same delegate, Gerome Balangue, signed notice NTC-31726, which revoked notice NTC-31520 and re-declared Launceston Airport a security controlled airport with a new airside area; that notice was registered on 12 November 2026 as C2026G00726.

In both cases the structure is identical: revocation of the predecessor notice, fresh declaration of the airport as a security controlled airport, establishment of an airside area under section 29, and commencement on publication. The practice indicates that the department is progressively re-making airport declarations rather than amending them, so that each airport’s boundaries and airside area are restated in a single current instrument.

What changes on the ground

For the airport operator and for airlines serving Tasmania, the practical consequence is that the legal boundary of the security controlled airport and the perimeter of the airside area are now those shown on the new attached map, not those attached to the July 2026 notice, which has ceased to have effect.

Travellers and visitors to the site are affected indirectly but immediately: the airside area is the zone in which aviation security controls, access restrictions and screening requirements apply, and its outer limit is now the one drawn on the map attached to NTC-31732.

Anyone relying on the earlier declaration — including contractors, tenants and ground handlers working airside — should treat the 24 July 2026 instrument as superseded as of 13 November 2026 and refer instead to the new notice and its map.

Source: Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, C2026G00731, 13 November 2026, Government Notices (official reference: NTC-31732).