[thorn bird]

Gobbles me old mate,
One also has to wonder just how much the "regulatory burden" adds to the cost of everything. I think people are starting to wake up that the cost of "compliance" across the board is what is making Australia the most expensive country in the world to live and do business in. Our pollies don't notice of course, their focus is over their noses and into the trough, not on the interests of those they represent.

The treasurer bangs on about reducing company tax rates. I would suggest tax cuts are small potatoes compared with unnecessary compliance with never ending rules which never accomplish the imagined problems they were meant to address.

Then of course there is the cost  multiplier of sweetheart union deals struck in collusion with big business basically to defraud the end user.

Finally the self serving bureaucrats add their little cost multiplier to the mix and it's easy to see why the cost of doing anything in this country is so high, the cost of actually making something dwarfed by the costs added by compliance.

Witness "Wellcamp" a single runway, terminal building and infrastructure
Privately built for a couple of hundred million and I imagine a fair percentage of that went to compliance and it was done in a couple of years. Compare that with Badgeries Creek, a single runway, terminal and infrastructure, with estimates running into billions and decades to build.

What has happened to aviation over the years is testament to what happens when mystic, murky Mandarins and their minions are not kept under control by their responsible ministers and creeping regulation is allowed to flourish unhindered with no checks and balances nor any regard to the ultimate cost. Dick Smith coined the phrase "Affordable safety" I think now the public is starting to wake up to the need for "Affordable Regulations". Australia cannot survive as a services only economy, we must make stuff and sell it, for that we must compete least we fall into the trap of so many other old world countries who didn't keep a close eye on the cost benefit bottom line.