Andy RR, yes I would certainly recommend that people get into most forms of business in Australia today. I have operated three profitable businesses in my time – electronics manufacturing (then importing after Whitlam took off the protective tariffs), retailing and servicing, then magazine publishing, then food retailing. In each of these businesses there has been no Government over-regulation to stifle the viability of the operating business.
From my experience, there are literally hundreds of different businesses that people can get involved in and still make a small fortune – if not a large one.
Aviation should be one of them, but because those in the bureaucracy have been able to promote “the lie” that in aviation alone, safety comes before cost. That has prevented businesses from being viable. Yes, if you have tens of millions of passengers like the Airlines do you could hand on the costs caused by needless over-regulation and they are hardly noticed by the individual passenger. However in the general aviation industry, they are noticed – so much so that in many cases, the business is sent into bankruptcy.
Aviation could be the same – once we get the Act changed, there will be a real message that the bureaucrats have to comply. We will then be able to look around the world and copy the regulations which give the highest level of safety while retaining viable general aviation businesses.
It is possible. In fact, what the bureaucrats are doing now will work in reverse. As the businesses head towards bankruptcy they will become less safe. It has happened before. It will just be history repeating itself.
My advice in relation to getting out of the industry is totally genuine. I am very concerned about a number of people I know who are holding in there, hoping that things are going to get better, but if that doesn’t happen, they will lose far more in the future than they will lose if they close down now.
I am also pretty well convinced that we will need an almost complete collapse of the general aviation charter and training industries before anything will be done. That is why I say let’s get it to happen quickly so we can get the fix in quickly.
That is, remove these cargo cult people who have a type of religious faith that aviation can be different to everything else in life. One day it will happen. The quicker it does, the quicker the fix will be and we can start employing tens of thousands of people again in aviation and having the whole industry growing.