The government hasn't owned or operated local aerodromes for most of the time they've been in existence.
....which was all fine and well while ever normal (old fashioned) Local Govt infrastructure practices continued.
Unfortunately, in the last 5 years we have seen the creation and expansion of the AAA and a propagation of the "Airport as a Business" and "maximise return to Ratepayers" model, which in turn started the trend of "Council as Property Developer" followed by "lets build a gold-plated airport and charge all the rich operators a fortune to use it".
The Euro-style Part 139 MOS has provided all the justification they could ever have wanted to expand their empires to the point where Scone airport has direct operating costs of about $78,000 pa but extended costs (once you take the management salaries etc into account) of around $300,000pa.
The geniuses at Upper Hunter Shire Council are now taking out loans of $10.8m to fund the airport mods before Part 139 comes into effect, adding $600,000 pa in loan repayments for the next 30 years.
All we need is basic infrastructure at a basic cost - but instead we are pricing our infrastructure through the roof so that only multinationals and government departments can afford to operate in Australia.
THIS is what is destroying GA, and all small family-owned businesses, in this country.