A genuine question, not inflammatory:
Let's say a bit of turf at Avalon was quarantined as a "tax-free zone" where foreign airframes (or those VH- registered which spend a lot of time outside the jurisdiction) could be flown in for maint with no GST and other forms of tax break - would the cost to the customer airline then be competitive with MROs elsewhere (so including wages etc)?
If so, has this idea been floated to the gov't? "If you create this tax environment, for fixing foreign-reg equipment (so essentially an export), we'll not only save a few jobs, but actually create 400".
The gov't might lose a bit from the GST foregone, but would gain from the corporate and individual income tax and lower transfer payments for the (now-not unemployed) LAMEs.
Or is that all a bit too logical?