principles of economics?
Prince of where? I'm just a busted arse occasional pilot who always thought you have to spend money to make money.
If you have a commercial pilots licence you have already spent in the vicinity of $50k. If you had a $50k car I'm sure you'd pay $1,000 every year to insure it yet you balk at a once only payment of $1,000 to protect the licence you worked so hard to obtain and the aviation future you hope to make for yourself.
You may think you will never fall foul of CASA because you don't break any rules. If that's the case you need to think again.
I personally know 6 people who have had their lives put through the wringer over essentially nothing. Two eventually recieved some sort of half arsed compensation from CASA, two gave up the unfair fight as costs approached $1m ,one was found not guilty and is still chasing compensation and one has a case ongoing with exceedingly dubious evidence from CASA.
There are many others I know about but don't know the pilots personally. If you want to educate yourself about what might happen to you a good place to start would be to read Paul Phelan's work. Perhaps start with 'Birds, what birds'?
Of course a strong united union would have many other benefits as such as ensuring aviation has a future in this country and that you have a job that pays more than $500 per week.