[thorn bird]

"I’ve no quarrel with ‘development’ on aerodromes – provided the public safety (including passengers and crew) is not compromised;"

I agree with you K, but!

Since the instigation of the giant "Ponzi" scheme that the so called "Privatisation" of our airports inflicted on the people of Australia, the track record of "safety" has been abrogated by the $$$ imperative.
$$$ that do not flow to the public, nor to the industry, rather into the pockets of very wealthy development sharks and into big banks offshore accounts.
The imperative that the original Airports Act and subsequent airport leases were primarily to ensure the safe and orderly conduct of aviation. Aviation and safety has been supplanted with the imperative of debt servicing, debt that never existed in the first place. The airports were owned by the people of Australia with NO debt to service.
Privatisation gave the airports an intrinsic value, enabling massive amounts of money to be borrowed, no doubt offshore, no doubt with interest rates finely tuned so a profit upon which tax would be liable was unachievable. The money, paid to the government, disappeared into consolidated revenue never to be seen again, but the now artificial debt creating a ravenous monster requiring ever increasing volumes of money to satisfy its hunger.
Why anyone imagines this imperative hasn't resulted in some fairly hefty donations to political parties and promises of future rewards to Murky Mandarins, in return for abrogation of the original intent of the Act and Leases, safety and aviation use being placed a poor last to profits (debt servicing) is perhaps somewhat naive.

I am of the firm belief that there are facets of vital public infrastructure should never be passed from public hands.

The myth that privatisation results in more efficiencies and therefore better outcomes for the consumer is no better illustrated by the aviation industry. Aviation infrastructure in Australia has descended to third world levels, none of the airport operators is prepared to spend money on aviation infrastructure other than that legally required. They must maintain infrastructure in the condition it was in at the time they signed the leases but not one cent more. Unless of course someone else pays for it, with an add on to service the debt of the money they would have to borrow to provide it.

Has privatisation lead to better outcomes and efficiencies for airport users?

Patently not, we have some of the most expensive airport charges in the world, our terminals consistently voted as very poor by users and all the while vast sums of money flow offshore tax free to various tax havens, modern technology that could improve efficiencies and safety foregone for debt servicing.

The parlous state of our electricity industry is another example of political mismanagement of essential public infrastructure being privatised. Once upon a time the government built the power generating facilities and the poles and wires that carried it to our homes, then billed us for what we used, we owned that infrastructure.

Privatisation simply placed an entity in the middle who borrowed vast amount of money to buy those assets and the public now has to pay to service the debt on the money they borrowed to buy those assets. The convoluted structure of various entities that own various parts of the grid all with their add on debt servicing charges and profit along with ideological political insanity has taken Australia from a position of having the cheapest most reliable electricity in the world to the dearest.

This is hardly indicative of efficiencies so called privatisation was supposed to bring, rather it illustrates just how inept our political elite is in managing the strings of government and how blind to the strategic imperative of secure affordable energy supply. Just how inept our Mandarins are in providing effective sound "advice"to government, how inept and incompetent they are in negotiating "business"contracts, giving a free hand to those that rape and pillage the Australian people in pursuit of the holy dollar.

Just how gullible are our ministers who accept the advice of unqualified, incompetent bureaucrats over the mountains of advice provided by the real experts the industry?

A puff piece in todays Australian from Paul Cleary and Andrew White regarding the imminent departure of Sydney Airports CEO. She's bleating about the viability of Badgerys Creek, no doubt trying to get the government to fund it. Some interesting titbits. McBank paid the government $5.6 Billion for the lease, yet is saddled with $8 billion of debt ???? passing strange. Since 2001 over a billion a year in turnover, and still 8 billion in debt???

If they had any sense, which unfortunately they don't, the government should tell McBank to go to hell and bring in the Wagner team. Badgerys could be finished in a few years for a fraction of the projected cost. One wonders what true competition would do to user charges across the Sydney basin.