Going back to the original question at the time when Gove tower was built the answer is:
Airservices and CASA were part of one organisation at the time - though you would not have known it - the people involved in Flight Standards and those involved in Air Traffic Control did not bother to communicate.
The Flight Standards people who, as a regular contributor to this site will tell you, were almost all ex-military with no understanding of costs or business rationale, dictated that all RPT jet operations had to be under the watchful eye of a control tower.
So it was decreed a tower be built at Gove, regardless of expense (cyclone design standards etc).
The Airways Division at the time was run by an engineer who thought such things were personal memorials to his achievements.
The ATC folk who had to meet a budget and had to co-ordinate their work with the airlines refused to staff the tower and incredibly the Board at the time backed this decision.
Result a huge white elephant.
Nowadays there is meant to be a more logical process overseen by the Office of Airspace Regulation within CASA but it is proving itself a dud in other ways.
Gee, I'd like to name names but I might even now get sued!