Chimbu chuckles, the report into cost recovery written by Henry Bosch – which was done well before my time – purported to show that after all the adjustments were made, the air nav and other charges covered about 50% of the cost of the Department’s aviation activities. I believe this is reasonably accurate.
This meant that when we moved to full cost recovery plus a profit to the Government for air traffic control services, the industry costs more than doubled.
When the Government forced the industry to pay its own way, I was the President of AOPA and introduced the slogan “Pay our own way and have our own say.” (If I remember correctly). That meant that we should be able to say what we wanted to pay for - i.e. what was necessary for GA.
Of course that completely failed as the Government forced GA to pay for services that were there for airline passengers alone. For example, at the moment the control tower at Hamilton Island (which is required by Qantas) has very substantial funding coming from the GA operators at Hamilton Island.