[thorn bird]

Privatisation of Australia’s publicly owned infrastructure such as airports was first mooted by Paul Keating, which is passing strange, disposing of public assets was supposedly an anathema to socialist ideals.

Keating’s labour government made a start on the process, the Howard liberal Government completed the scheme largely to produce a budget surplus to cement his governments credentials as sound managers of the public purse.

Was that directive in the public interest or in the interest of political ambition?

Was it a “good deal” for the Australian taxpayers?

Did it serve the interests of those utilising those airports?

Was a fair price paid?

Was the whole process transparent?

Was the intention of government to retain and protect the utility and viability of the airports for airport users?

Were sufficient protections and controls placed on Airport monopolies, to prevent erosion of the governments stated objectives and prevent them from asserting their position to unfairly gouge their stakeholders?

The primary Capital city airports were easy assets to dispose of, as Rupert Murdock so famously said, “nobody likes a Monopoly, unless you own one”. Unfortunately, the primaries were leased with virtually no controls, oversight, or accountability to curb Monopolistic entities from taking advantage of their position.

In Australia, in times past access to airports were essentially free of charge for aviators. Much like motor vehicles, aircraft registration and other fees were paid to cover the costs of airports and regulatory services, until the advent of “The user pays” principle and the notion that public services should be profit centres

In the USA, airports are vehemently protected as vital National assets and essentially free to use, in Australia they have become the plaything of big business generating huge returns with very little return to the actual owners, the Australian public.

Sydney airport as an example:

Remember, our airports are owned by the Australian people, they were owned debt free.

Mascot turns over is around a billion dollars a year. The original buyer paid around five and a half billion dollars for the lease and ran the airport for over a decade. In those years with a bit of “Creative accounting” they paid very little if anything in tax. With very high profit margins, I believe they very quickly recovered their initial investment.

Investing heavily building Car parks and hotels massively increased cash revenues, most likely to improve the balance sheet to maximise the returns for a future public offering rather than improving the utility and experience of airport users. It is also interesting to note that the company holding the lease for Sydney airport resides in Bahama, a notorious tax haven. Do we know anything about this company? it could be owned by china’s communist party for all we know.

Very little has been spent on improved aviation infrastructure other than minimal maintenance required by the lease.

As the gateways into Australia our airports are consistently voted some of the worst in the world, most certainly some of the most expensive. Consider air travellers experience passing through Changi in Singapore or Dubai then compare that to Sydney.

I often wonder why Qantas, who go to great pains to promote themselves as Australia’s airline spent hundreds of millions of dollars to establish their heavy maintenance base in Los Angeles USA employing thousands of Americans. I can’t imagine labour costs in the USA are much less than in Australia. Was the real reason that none of the privatised airports in Australia were prepared to offer reasonable terms to establish it here, preferring to build cash generating car parks and hotels rather than aviation related industrial infrastructure?

Privatisation shifted the ethos from public utility to a profit driven focus, to the detriment of the travelling public and the industry that requires an airport for their very existence. I believe Australian’s are paying a very heavy price for that and will continue to pay that price.

We have seen in recent times the airlines protesting at the price gouging of our predatory monopoly airports, it would seem that a limit has been reached on what they are prepared to pay. The airports say they must protect their profits, the paradox is without the airlines there is no profit, as we are now seeing with the current pandemic, just a bunch of empty carparks and hotels. The airports are crying poor and want the Australian public to prop them up. Might I suggest if they need propping up let them use some of their ill-gotten tax free profits rather than the largess of the Australian taxpayer. If they do go broke, I believe insolvency is a condition that voids the leases, the government could return them to public management.

No great loss I believe.

We reserve huge tracts of land as open spaces in the public interest because our ever increasing numbers make space more difficult to find and impossible for most individuals to afford especially in urban areas.

Aviation is a unique enterprise that requires large open spaces to operate from. It can hardly up stakes and move to a cheaper location, as any other industrial enterprise can if its costs become unsustainable, it has choice, aviation does not.

Aviation also requires structures such as hangers and terminals with access to runways. Basing charges for aviation use against the ever-inflating price airport land could achieve on the open market puts it at an unfair disadvantage to other industry who have the advantage of buying the land their factories sit on thereby gaining an asset, aviation is denied that option.