It would take a high profile public figure to bring it to the publics' (and subsequently the Government's) attention
Sadly, neither the government or the public care.
The public just see GA as a rich mans toy and if you asked 100 members of the general public what they know I bet over 90 of them would answer along a very similar vein of "Little Cessna's? They crash all the time, aren't they dangerous?"
The government don't care because there is no money and no votes in it. How many active pilot licences are there right now in Australia? 60-70 thousand? Spread across the whole country? There are much larger, much crazier lobby groups that wield more influence to get noticed and 'buy' votes than anyone in aviation. And even if we did have numbers to matter, we couldn't form a cohesive bunch. The last time any two given pilots agreed on any given subject was when Orville and Wilbur chose the field in Kittyhawk, and it's been nothing but in-fighting and backstabbing ever since. FFS, no two people in aviation can even agree about when to clean a set of injectors, and we are expected to form a cohesive lobby group to get our lot improved?! HA!
I guess though, soon, it won't matter, cos Dick was actually right. I remember BK in the 90's, there being 6 or 7 big schools, a few small ones, and NOWHERE to park, there were so many aircraft there. You could hold a football match on the area where Navair used to park now, and not hit anything. I guess that's what happens on a race to the bottom in an industry where the next guy is prepared to work for free just to get the experience and there are people willing to take them on for it.
Anyway, I am tired and going to bed!
