It is so typical of bureaucrats, isn’t it tossbag?
Private pilots are people who’ve apparently spent their lives successfully avoiding paying any kind of tax or charge and not making any other contribution to public infrastructure, now selfishly using aerodromes at ‘no cost’.
What is the justification for use of a primary school at ‘no cost’? Where do poor people get off, sending their children to get a ‘free’ education? Maybe it’s because we’re supposedly an advanced civilisation where education has an intrinsic value measured not just in dollars. It’s funded as a public good, out of the common wealth.
(I know: Private aviation has no intrinsic value. The skills and knowledge and capability are completely worthless to society. It’s just self-indulgence.)
The ALOP aerodromes were our (Commonwealth taxpayer’s) land given to local councils with a large wadge of our (Commonwealth taxpayer’s) money to be salted away to fund upkeep. Councils used it for other stuff. And that’s our fault, apparently.
I invested at YCTM because the Council had an enlightened understanding of the real value of the aerodrome. I pay rates. I spend lots in the local area. There’s a throughput charge for the Avgas bowser that goes to Council. And now Council wants to charge me a new fee because I’m using the aerodrome at ‘no cost’!
My preference is that Council charge only us ‘locals’ new fees because I do not want to deter visitors to YCTM. I want as many people as possible to use YTCM at ‘no cost’, because I know the real value of private aviation. And I’ll demonstrate to Council that which I’ve told them over and over again: The cost of collecting the fees will outweigh the fees collected. I’ll just reduce my Avgas purchases at YCTM and fill up at YTEM instead, such that the throughput charge I would otherwise have happily paid at YCTM outweighs the new fees I’m charged. Even bean-counting bureaucrats should be able to understand the folly. (There's a metaphor about using honey rather than vinegar to achieve a desired outcome.)