The first and only time I have been into Williamtown was a couple of months ago in a 737. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we were given a radar service from Willie approach until the FAF. That is to say we flew overhead the airport at aprx 6000ft for the full procedure before being handed off to the tower once established inbound.
This is the kind of radar service we could use at places Ballina, Hamilton Island and heaven forbid Launceston.
Departing from Maroochydore airliners often we have to level off at low level while still within the confines of the Class D tower airspace out to 8nm at low level only to be 'blocked' from making a redundant 'departure' call due tower frequency congestion.
Then due to the resultant delay from tower handing us off to Brisbane approach, we are forced to fly into class G airspace, which is in fact covered by Bris approach radar. This is a great example of why we should consider reducing the size of the tower controlled airspace and give it to the guys with the radar and giving the radar guys terminal class E instead of G, so they can give an IFR service.
What about giving radar services much closer to the airports, like they gave us at Willie. What do others think?