The General Manager of the Armidale Dumaresq Council has declared that there is a list of developments totalling over $5 million that need to be carried out at the airport over the next five years and that the cost of these and ongoing maintenance cannot be met out of existing revenue.
Perhaps Mr Burns needs to provide the details of these ‘improvements’, details of existing revenue from travellers, airlines and the other businesses that operate from/at the airport and the most recent dates from which these charges have operated.
He has stated that ADC has, yet again, rejected the principle of the user pays. ADC has rejected out of hand the logical source of increased income if, indeed, as Mr Burns states, the ADC believes that the airport should be self-funding viz, increased charges to be paid by all passengers, airlines and all other businesses operating at the airport – without any concessions being given to ADC favourites.
Instead, ADC continues to propose the imposition of paid daily parking charges without supplying the community with details of installation and ongoing operating costs. Once again, ADC proposes to impose a tax that discriminates against rural ratepayers in that they are the customers who, unlike city dwellers, have restricted viable, no-parking transport options on those occasions on which they are airline passengers. Once again, the rural ratepayers will be subsidising services for city dwellers.
The only fair option is to increase payments by all users – businesses using buildings eg, offices and hangars, the airstrip, safety services, the operators of the proposed covered carpark, airlines and passengers on all aircraft – Qantas, charter, training and ‘joy’ flights.
But that appears to be far too logical, far too fair and far too non- discriminatory for the ADC to even contemplate, doesn’t it?
Why is this always so?
Margaret Gunter,
Armidale
