Anyone who thinks that this $1 lease was “selling out” to foreign interests is a fool.
This was a great deal for WA and for Merredin. CSA have injected hundreds of millions of dollars into the WA economy over the last 20 years.
The “control tower”... CSA paid for and built it.
The sealed runways - CSA paid for and built it.
The fuel facilities - wouldn’t be there at all without CSA, like most aerodromes where the fuel companies have pulled up stumps.
The buildings .... you guessed it.
The parking facilities, the sealed taxiways, the housing both at the airport and in town... CSA again.
Those facilities which Dick Smith is dying to get his hands on - they were built and paid for by CSA. Had this “selling out” not occurred, you wouldn’t be landing there anyway - because it’d be a 500m dirt strip with no facilities.
“It is outrageous that an Aussie pilot can’t go to a country airport without getting approval from the Chinese to land there,” he said.
Complete BS. Another “Won’t somebody think of the children!” moment.
Locals say permission has never been denied
There’s the rub.
This thread should be bookmarked so that in twenty years when no one wants to invest a cent in Australia, we’ll look back on alarmist crap like this and know why.