To understand the scale of the problem of GA -and why its stuffed, consider Australias GDP - an overall indicator of economic activity. in 2004 Australian GDP was approximately 613 US Billion. In 2016 is was 1.2 US trillion - approximately double.
I chose those dates because thats what BITRE used for some of its comparisons.
By my simplistic, perhaps puerile, measure we could say hat if the GA sector had doubled in size during the period 2004 - 2016, we could say that the sector is as healthy (or sick) as the rest of Australia’s economy.
BITRES analysis shows ^&%^ all change has occurred. Therefore one has to conclude that something has changed, and not for the better. Ah Ha! You say. But most of that is inflation.
So lets look at GDP at constant prices.... 2004 - 300 A$ Billion. 2016 -420 A$ billion. Thats 40% growth. Do we see a GA sector 40% larger? 40% more jobs, pilots aircraft and businesses??????? Nope, not even close. Therefore something has changed for the worse.
What has changed for the worse? The weather? The technology?
The answer is that the cause is man made and the evidence (Forsyth review) points to poor regulation causing a general lack of trust of the regulator. That translates in the capital asset pricing model to a higher risk premium on aviation investments compared to say, property, etc. so aviation investment suffers compared to investment in the rest of the economy..