But it's not NO cost. That available person is not there to do Unicom. They are there doing something for and being paid for by someone else. It's like free wifi and free healthcare and free education. Its only free to the end user, the costs are absorbed by someone else. Clearly, no one wants to absorb the costs of a Unicom, because hardly any one provides one.
I don't know how Ballina is funding its CAGRS, but lets say, like the Fire Service, its via an RPT pax head tax. Say it costs $400k to provide, BNK was forecast to have around 400k pax through its terminals these days, so that's a $1 on each ticket. Hardly bank breaking. So that means each and every other user of BNK gets a professional, certified, trained service, paid for by someone else. Just like the firies are. So that's a bit better than a half arsed guess by some random baggie who happens to be walking past the radio when you call.
So when you drop in in your C172, you get a dedicated Fire service, and (maybe) a dedicated traffic and weather service, for free! (Well, at least for you).