Home Affairs redeclares Adelaide Airport security zone and redraws airside boundary

Adelaide Airport has been re-declared a security controlled airport and given a newly defined airside area by a delegate of the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs. The instrument, numbered NTC-31695, was signed on 9 November 2026 and published in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette on 10 November 2026 as C2026G00723. It took effect upon publication.

The three-page government notice is issued under the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004, the statute that governs security at Australian airports, and it replaces the airport’s previous declaration in full rather than amending it. The earlier instrument, NTC-30778, had itself been struck only months ago, having been published in the Gazette as C2026G00420 on 3 July 2026.

The notice is signed by Jaran Blethyn, identified by position number 48000469, in his capacity as a delegate of the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs. It states that it remains in force until it is otherwise revoked in writing and subsequently published in the Gazette.

What the instrument actually does

Under subsection 28(2) of the Act, the delegate performs three operative acts in a single notice:

• Revokes notice NTC-30778, which had declared Adelaide Airport a security controlled airport as published in the Gazette on 3 July 2026.
• Declares that Adelaide Airport is a security controlled airport, with its boundaries shown on a map attached to the notice and forming part of it.
• Establishes, in accordance with section 29 of the Act, an airside area for the airport, being the area indicated as the airside area on that same attached map.

The repeal-and-redeclare structure matters: the airport does not lose its status at any point, but it acquires a fresh set of boundaries and a fresh airside definition, both drawn from the attached map rather than described in the text of the notice.

The map as the operative boundary

The notice contains no written metes and bounds, address list or coordinate schedule. The legal limits of both the security controlled airport and its airside area exist only by reference to the attached map, which the notice declares forms part of the instrument. In practice this means the airport’s access-control perimeter and the line separating landside from airside are now governed by a single cartographic document published with C2026G00723.

Because the notice commences on publication rather than on a later commencement day, the new boundaries apply from 10 November 2026. Airport operators, airlines and ground handlers working at the site, and travellers moving through it, are all caught by the redeclared perimeter and the airside area it defines.

One of a series of airport redeclarations

The Adelaide notice is the latest in a run of comparable instruments published in the Gazette over recent months, each following the same revoke-declare-establish formula:

• Launceston Airport, notice NTC-31520, published 29 October 2026 (C2026G00702), replacing NTC-30498 of 21 May 2026.
• Karratha Airport, published 28 October 2026 (C2026G00705), replacing NTC-19570 of 23 September 2020.
• Rockhampton Airport, published 27 October 2026 (C2026G00701), replacing NTC-30900 of 22 July 2026.
• Canberra Airport, published 22 October 2026 (C2026G00689), replacing NTC-28207 of 1 April 2025.
• Moranbah Airport, published 22 October 2026 (C2026G00692), replacing NTC-19389 of 28 August 2020.
• Mackay Airport, published 3 November 2026 (C2026G00714), replacing NTC-29341 of 2 October 2025.
• Coffs Harbour Airport, published 14 September 2026 (C2026G00603), replacing NTC-25853 of 8 December 2023.
• Sunshine Coast Airport, published 8 September 2026 (C2026G00593), replacing NTC-30341 of 22 April 2026.
• Emerald Airport, published 26 August 2026 (C2026G00565), replacing NTC-30244 of 30 March 2026.

The interval between the revoked and the replacement notice varies widely across that list, from a few months in the case of Adelaide, Rockhampton and Launceston to several years for Karratha, Moranbah and Coffs Harbour.

For readers, the practical consequence of NTC-31695 is that any map, access plan or security programme still keyed to the July 2026 declaration is now superseded. The obligations that attach to a security controlled airport, and the controls that apply once a person crosses into the airside area, now run from the boundaries fixed on 10 November 2026, not from those in force since 3 July 2026.

Source: Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, C2026G00723, 10 November 2026, Government Notices, p. 1 (official reference: NTC-31695).