If Ballina airport/industry wants to fund a tower why can't it be privately operated under contract to Airservices?
Be interesting to see what the actual costs would work out at, (I can bet that AsA will not cover the controller cost as the FAA does, so the contract would have to include the gold-plated ATC costs that AsA would charge). I wonder if industry or the locals would be so keen then?
If contract ATC were allowed then this would make it more compelling, as it pretty much comes down to staffing costs:
Contract Vs FAA