[thorn bird]

One thing I'd dearly like to know is just what inducement was offered to a Murky mandarin and his side kick beaker when the whole airports privatisation was implemented. I just can't believe Murky and his mate could be so inept and incompetent.

Here we have the primary airports in the hands of foreign entities, essentially monopolies, generating enormous amounts of turnover, yet paying precious little in tax and investing bugger all back into actual aviation related infrastructure. Essentially the Government who owned the real estate, debt free, used privatisation as a tool to borrow money off the books through a third party, where interest on "borrowed" money would enable the third party to avoid tax.

Secondary airports different scenario, bugger all cash flow, but very valuable real estate, enter the development sharks.

A moments reflection:

When these airports were privatised the government of the day said it recognised that the land was to be reserved for aviation use because aviation was a unique industry which required clear open ground to operate from and these airports were, under the act, to be retained and maintained in their original form.

After privatisation aviation was basically forced off their "reserved" land by inflated charges based on the commercial value of the land as if it was freehold. The oft used excuse being they are entitled to a return to cover the costs of the money they borrowed to buy them, so essentially the government, who owned the land debt free, to the detriment of the aviation industry created a debt by privatisation.

Despite the protections for aviation in the act and the head leases, property development sharks have managed to subvert or bypass those protections.

Airports were not to be owned or controlled by property developers, yet they are.

Airports were not to be owned or controlled by trusts, yet they are.

Airports were to be maintained in their original condition, which they aren't.

The DFO's in Essendon clearly were constructed contrary to the Airports ACT and head leases in that they impinge on aviation activity as do many other airport developments.

The Essendon DFO's clearly impinge on safety in light of world best practice. Perhaps the DFO businesses should be directing their angst against those that allowed them to be built in the first place.