Well said Tail Wheel.
We have over the past decade or so changed the behaviour of government agencies to reduce their drain on consolidated revenue by making
user pay. You would be hard pressed making an argument to the Howard Government that Farmer Joe Bloggs has a social responsibility to subsidise a pilot's career. From
CASA:
In line with Australian Government policy, CASA is required to recover costs for providing regulatory services to the aviation industry.
Fortunately, CASA realises $130 is unreasonable and will be reducing the fee to $75 from 1/7/07. To compensate, increases in other fees will have to take place
in line with the Australian Government's cost recovery policy.
Note carefully here is a government agency very specifically blaming the government's
policy. This is the government YOU elected. I'm sure Costello has cut your tax by more than enough to cover this small impost.