Folks,
Let's get one fact right, "user pays" came from the Bosch Report, adopted by the first Hawke Government.
Dick's (AOPA's) slogan was: "User pays, user says", a demand to have a say in the services provided, if we were going to have to pay for services, we didn't want to pay for service not wanted and not needed.
As for the fuel taxes, the major one, finally about 13.8 cents a litre, was a subsidy to secondary airport towers, not aviation infrastructure in general. The remainder, about 2 cents, went to CAA, later CASA.
Nobody could ever convince me (in those days in the bush) or an Ag. operator, or the schools at Hoxton Park (as just one example) why we should all pay 13.8 cents for Avgas (but nil for Jet A) per litre to subsidize Bankstown operators,(or anybody with a kero burner, like all Dick's aircraft) so they could have a "free" tower.
As I recall the figures, about 8% of avgas sales in early1990s was from secondary and other non-primary towered airports, so very roughly, 92% were subsidizing the 8%.
Tootle pip!!