I drove through Archerfield Airport today. Unless one is in the market for a heavy earthmoving machine, a car battery or a plethora of other non aviation goods and services, the aviation industry is not even a shadow of the activity it was twenty or thirty years ago. I suspect airport charges and regulatory costs have decimated general aviation.
The Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Crabb cohort at CASA and the FAC and subsequent airport privatisation left general aviation and flying training in a state of near rigor mortis.