09-28-2021, 08:00 AM
It's rather disappointing Sandy that the lessons of history get ignored when the capricious pursuit of easy money short term trumps the long term benefits of keeping things the way they were.
Secondary Airports were not a drain on the public purse when they were run by the FAC. In fact they produced a modest profit to the treasury each year. Of course that was when we had a GA industry, before puerile purblind over-regulation brought it to its knees. The old political furphy "the user must pay" gets manipulated when suits to advance the interest away from the users to those who will profit. General aviation did "pay its way", its problem was it just didn't pay enough to head off those that saw massive easy money from the land allegedly reserved for its use.
There are huge tracts of very valuable land reserved for public use that cost the taxpayers vast amounts of money to maintain. National Parks for example. Do they return a "Profit?", does "the user pays" principle apply to them?
At the end of the day it all comes down to Politics and the manipulation of our political elite that governs how that principle is applied. Imagine the political heat if a McBank lobbied the politicians to begin biting large chunks out of our national parks for "Development".
In the case of Bankstown Airport, it was reserved as an airport site back in the 1920ies. It wasn't till 1942 when Australia suddenly found itself threatened with not enough airports that it suddenly became an essential part of the defence of Sydney.
We have been living in a fools paradise for a very long time never imagining that good old lay back Australia would ever be threatened. After 1942 we embarked on a frantic airport building program to counter the existential threat we faced at the time, never looking however, at the future. We hurriedly built airports to suit the aircraft of the time, little more than gravel strips or just large paddocks, which essentially was all Bankstown airport was. In America the army corp of engineers built their airports with the future in mind, substantial, solid structures capable of supporting the largest, heaviest of their military vehicles.
We see that same lack of vision in the development of our largest cities. Instead of encouraging development in our regional centres by building transport infrastructure to allow them to develop, diversifying our population from being centralised in every growing main capitals. An easy target for those that would do us harm, propelling housing costs the ever unaffordable heights and degrading the living space we all covet.
In the Bankstown area alone this is ever more apparent. Perfectly sound houses demolished to make way for dog box poorly constructed duplexes, streets chocked with parked cars to the extent that just finding a clear spot to put your garbage out for collection is becoming increasingly impossible. I fear this ever contracting level of living space will one day come back to haunt us.
In the modern era of warfare a single bomb can take out almost a quarter of our population and a good percentage of our ability to produce. Wars are won by the ability to produce. Protecting that is not advanced by concentrating it all in one place.
Secondary Airports were not a drain on the public purse when they were run by the FAC. In fact they produced a modest profit to the treasury each year. Of course that was when we had a GA industry, before puerile purblind over-regulation brought it to its knees. The old political furphy "the user must pay" gets manipulated when suits to advance the interest away from the users to those who will profit. General aviation did "pay its way", its problem was it just didn't pay enough to head off those that saw massive easy money from the land allegedly reserved for its use.
There are huge tracts of very valuable land reserved for public use that cost the taxpayers vast amounts of money to maintain. National Parks for example. Do they return a "Profit?", does "the user pays" principle apply to them?
At the end of the day it all comes down to Politics and the manipulation of our political elite that governs how that principle is applied. Imagine the political heat if a McBank lobbied the politicians to begin biting large chunks out of our national parks for "Development".
In the case of Bankstown Airport, it was reserved as an airport site back in the 1920ies. It wasn't till 1942 when Australia suddenly found itself threatened with not enough airports that it suddenly became an essential part of the defence of Sydney.
We have been living in a fools paradise for a very long time never imagining that good old lay back Australia would ever be threatened. After 1942 we embarked on a frantic airport building program to counter the existential threat we faced at the time, never looking however, at the future. We hurriedly built airports to suit the aircraft of the time, little more than gravel strips or just large paddocks, which essentially was all Bankstown airport was. In America the army corp of engineers built their airports with the future in mind, substantial, solid structures capable of supporting the largest, heaviest of their military vehicles.
We see that same lack of vision in the development of our largest cities. Instead of encouraging development in our regional centres by building transport infrastructure to allow them to develop, diversifying our population from being centralised in every growing main capitals. An easy target for those that would do us harm, propelling housing costs the ever unaffordable heights and degrading the living space we all covet.
In the Bankstown area alone this is ever more apparent. Perfectly sound houses demolished to make way for dog box poorly constructed duplexes, streets chocked with parked cars to the extent that just finding a clear spot to put your garbage out for collection is becoming increasingly impossible. I fear this ever contracting level of living space will one day come back to haunt us.
In the modern era of warfare a single bomb can take out almost a quarter of our population and a good percentage of our ability to produce. Wars are won by the ability to produce. Protecting that is not advanced by concentrating it all in one place.