Sunfish et al
The regulations have nothing to do with people's interest in flying for fun. Those not involved are unaware and if made aware are potentially frightened off by the uninformed scare monger fraternity.
I live in an area with many public and private GA supported aerodromes.The opposition, based on noise complaints and "why are we paying for this thing we don't need", is constant from local residents and ratepayer in general. They do not care about a few score jobs on site, they see no community benefit.The EMS service is provided by helicopters operating out of an industrial area and they complain about noise from the EMS helicopters. They certainly do not want to pay for aerodromes that do not have RPT ops. There are a few notable exceptions but even Temora has community noise complainers.
Please nominate what the public good really is in real, unemotive terms. The councils would love your wisdom. The furphy of defence is just that. we no longer live in the age of piston engine fighters and bombers with no electronics