That was in 2001. Albanese himself would go on to spend six years as the transport minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments, neither of which got on with building the airport.

But Albanese is not alone. For more than 60 years, politicians of all persuasions have found it easier to talk a good game on another Sydney airport than to deliver.

The announcement by Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Tuesday that his government would build at Badgerys Creek is not the first time this promise has been made; it may yet be the first time it has been fulfilled.

The first federal government to seriously look into the location of another airport in Sydney was the Chifley Labor government in 1946.

At that time, the most likely spot was at Towra Point, on the other side of Botany Bay from Kingsford Smith airport, and ultimately found to be unworkable on environmental grounds.

So governments instead spent the 1960s and 1970s commissioning reports into other potential sites, including Galston in the Hills district, Somersby on the central coast, Badgerys Creek to Sydney's south-west, and Wilton, still further south-west.

Gough Whitlam's government selected then dropped Galston.

When Kim Beazley was aviation minister in 1984, he declared that the location of another airport had been whittled down to Badgerys Creek or Wilton.

''Because of the thoroughness of this work and the fact that 40 years of indecision by previous governments has been brought to an end, I am confident of a broad measure of support for our decision,'' said Beazley's successor Peter Morris about the choice of Badgerys Creek, and the Hawke government purchased more than 1700 hectares of land there.

But at the same time, a perspective emerged that the government could delay or even prevent the need for the airport if it built a third runway at Mascot.

This debate would end up shaping the politics of aviation in Sydney for at least the next decade.

When the Hawke government said it would build the third runway in 1989, the decision triggered howls of protest, including from some of its own.

And when the runway opened in 1994, suburbs across inner-west Sydney experienced aircraft noise that far exceeded the mild predictions of an environmental impact statement.

Feeding off the hostility created by the runway, the No Aircraft Noise Party polled 40 per cent of the two-party preferred vote at the 1995 state election in Marrickville.

The Keating government committed funds for a Badgerys Creek airport at the 1995 election and the airport was intended to open for the 2000 Olympics. But by that time, the politics of airports in western Sydney had shifted, seemingly irreparably.

''Back before a third runway at Kingsford Smith, most of those councils actually supported an airport at Badgerys Creek,'' Noel Child, an environmental and transport engineer recalled last year.

''What changed the political landscape was the emergence of the No Aircraft Noise party and the fact that opposition to aircraft noise became a big dynamic in Sydney local government.''

By 2003, neither major party had a policy on another Sydney airport.

Into this vacuum Albanese, who had made his name in inner west politics campaigning against aircraft noise, became transport minister in 2007.

Albanese commissioned green and white papers into aviation, but these largely dodged the question of another Sydney airport. A study he commissioned came down in 2012 and showed Badgerys Creek as the clear best option for another airport site. Labor, however, was still officially opposed to a Badgerys airport and stalled for time.

But Albanese's study at least meant Prime Minister Tony Abbott would not have to commission any more reports.

Abbott, like Paul Keating in 1995 and Bob Hawke in 1986, had the evidence in front of him in support of Badgerys Creek.