Mackay Airport redeclared as security controlled with new airside boundary

A Delegate of the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs has revoked the 2025 declaration covering Mackay Airport and re-declared it a security controlled airport, with boundaries set anew and a designated airside area established. The decision is carried in notice NTC-31568, signed on 29 October 2026, and it commenced on publication in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (Government Notices) on 3 November 2026 under official reference C2026G00714.

The instrument is made under subsection 28(2) of the Aviation Transport Security Act 2004, the statute that governs security at Australian airports and ports. It replaces in full the earlier declaration of the same airport, notice NTC-29341, which had been published in the Gazette as C2025G00551 on 2 October 2025 and is now revoked. The notice was signed by Gerome Balangue, Delegate of the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Position No. 48000573.

The document appeared in a batch of security declarations issued by the same department portfolio on the same day, including notice NTC-31575, signed by Michaela Featherstone on 29 October 2026, which revoked the declaration of the Ngujima-Yin as a security regulated offshore facility under the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003.

Three operative decisions in one instrument

The notice does three things, in sequence:

• It revokes notice NTC-29341, the 2025 declaration of Mackay Airport as a security controlled airport.
• It declares that Mackay Airport is a security controlled airport, with its boundaries shown on an attached map that forms part of the notice.
• 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 revocation and the new declaration take effect together: the earlier notice does not lapse on its own terms but is expressly displaced, so there is no gap between the two instruments.

Boundaries fixed by map, not by description

The text of the notice does not set out coordinates, street addresses or a written description of the perimeter. Both elements that matter operationally — the outer boundary of the security controlled airport and the extent of the airside area — are fixed by reference to the attached map, which the notice states forms part of it.

That means the practical content of the declaration is graphical. Anyone relying on the notice, from the airport operator to airlines and ground handling contractors, must work from the map rather than from a verbal boundary, and the redrawing of that line is the substantive change from the position that applied under the October 2025 notice.

In force from publication, until revoked

• Commencement: upon publication in the Gazette, that is 3 November 2026.
• Duration: the notice remains in force until otherwise revoked in writing and subsequently published in the Gazette.
• Gazette: Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, Government Notices, C2026G00714, registered 3 November 2026.
• Notice number: NTC-31568, dated 29 October 2026.

No transition period, consultation step or deferred start date is provided for in the instrument; the operative provisions apply immediately on publication.

Why it matters

For an airport in central Queensland, the declaration is the legal trigger for the security regime that surrounds the movement of passengers and baggage: a security controlled airport and its airside area are the geographic foundation on which screening, access control and transport security program obligations are built. Because the notice both revokes the 2025 instrument and re-sets the boundary and airside area by map, the airport operator, airlines and travellers are now subject to a new geographic definition rather than a continuation of the old one — and any document, plan or procedure that referred to the October 2025 declaration now points to a revoked notice.

Source: Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, Government Notices, No. C2026G00714, 3 November 2026, Notice NTC-31568 (official reference: C2026G00714).