There's more good news this week with one Victorian and two South Australian airports being upgraded. Coober Pedy and Marree are to get much needed funding, with Coober Pedy's being needed to meet new CASA regs for RPT. The government's attitude toward keeping RPT at Coober is heartening, and all pilots will benefit from a wider sealed runway.
The $1 million grant to Tyabb is causing some controversy, as it is the home club of Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips. Naturally, the opposition is calling it a conflict of interest and saying the airport doesn't qualify under the guidelines of the fund. Firstly, Rich-Phillips has stated that he took the conflict to the Department of Premier and Cabinet and washed his hands of the grant. That was absolutely the right thing to do, and it is what the Labor Party would be saying he should have done had he not done it. Secondly, the aviation fund is for regional airports be they public or private ... it says so in the guidelines.
But, the biggest question in my mind comes when you reverse the situation. Should Tyabb have been excluded from funding because the minister was a member? That doesn't seem fair to me; Tyabb has the right to apply the same as any airport does. As for the issue of the airport being privately-run, where were Labor's slings and arrows when Lethbridge was given a motza to seal their runway? I wonder if we'd even be reporting this story were a state election not coming up in November.
On another issue, I see that CASA's Acting Director of Aviation Safety Terry Farquharson has said that CASA wants a better relationship with the industry. Are they catching on at last? We've been bleating about that for years and recently got support from the Forsyth Report. However, Farquharson's comments seem to be lacking in any acceptance of responsibility for the poor relationship in the first place. With that, we have to wonder if CASA is, yet again, blaming the industry for their own inability to connect.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch