The 50 or so jobs sound realistic for FTQ’s operations, but they may not necessarily all be additional to what’s being employed for Maryborough airfield services now. Where did the claimed 300 jobs come from?

The claims about your Council were ‘All were impressed by the low impact’ needs clarification. Does that relate to noise or accident? They probably didn’t fly over them much that day they visited Parafield anyway, or if they did, they skillfully coasted using minimum throttle – a magnitude of difference in noise compared to the inexperienced powering up and turning with wind.

Keith also quotes that, “It could be argued the vehicle traffic on the highway near by has a greater impact”. Some perspective and scale should accompany that statement, offering it true meaning. The Salisbury Highway has a horrendous impact to the ~1000+ dwellings along it. A Parafield flight training circuit goes directly over the top of ~20,000 homes. The Salisbury Highway ranks easily in the top dozen busiest roads in the country. This rot became a reality when they connected that highway to the Port, which like mass flight training, was not the original intention when the area was settled for housing. Both disgusting social/public health situations were avoidable. Like aviation pollution, our State does not measure, or want to know how bad that road environment is to public health. Road deaths now occur on it annually. Flight training incidents & deaths will astound you, and they only the reported ones, occurring when towers are operational. ( http://sites.google.com/site/parafieldairport/Home/parafield-airport-reported-flight-training-incidents ). The Federal Government recently encouraged accelerating the completion of a major $300M bypass, but does little to measure true flight training pollution. I hope this bit of ‘local experience’ helps comprehend what could be ‘argued about’. Either way, there is no ‘low impact’ to be impressed about.

About their pro aviation ‘information day’ junket, that would have been claimed as community ‘consultation’ – over something the community would have no idea what large parts of its residents’ would be subjected to, either before of after their ‘Information Day’. If the 150 ‘free joyflights’ went over homes without invitation, that is in itself undemocratic example of arrogance.

Originally it 75 extra overflights were mentioned, now Keith quotes ~100 only for surrounding airfields. So how many overflights for Maryborough? Possibly too big to mention, FTA’s operations have put 1000-2000 a day over us, that extra zero is no typo. 100 overflights an hour is typical of their circuit operations till 11PM. That’s readily achieved with 4-5 cadets (99% foreign) flying a circuit at a given time, disturbing 20,000 Australian family homes, most were established there first. How democratic is that?

Keith quotes an 11PM curfew, like at Parafield – but that’s probably a voluntary curfew. Regardless, the 1990 House of reps Select Committee on Aircraft Noise (HORSCAN, http://996826566076709111-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/parafieldairportpollution/governance-material/HORSCANrecommendations.pdf?attredirects=0&auth=ANoY7cquVslrbsSd-ArBvJ–hpdeAB3pFRj4SZ_9GDifhJyPlK–c6HrJGMZBvSBMjmyohfISj-N7Y-0C_FF3Cj0mHG2NyR_gAeUpNI58dmRVvaCZyhf8Kd9j80J4uyg-lhGCg9QntRGA80FiohFGswFRQHuJF1JQGqMVOgUU78WIxaa7CCzCJHmOUF2tCxJRBS3VxyMfW2W3CGfvWJHQTu7SyU9bzKV-HPerjq4UlBmaBoK9XwvWt_aDTN7nUGe5Luq6uTsLS-C ) recommends night flight training to cease one hour after dark, which I guess would be about 8PM in your part of the world. This HORSCAN recommendation is virtually ignored at Parafield since their academy started.

Hope this is of some value, its pleasing for us that your community had a chance voicing itself. The loss of good journalism to ‘Public Relations’ organisations are a big cause of ignorance being promulgated, with ‘public opinion’ being ‘created’ by manipulating information. Trouble is, the ignorance adversely affects our representation in many ways. Govt & Corporations exploit this, that’s why that National Aviation policy Green paper ( http:// http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/nap/ ) is open for study/submissions during the Christmas break. Also, management identifies psychopathic qualities, and personal inadequacies to exploit while grooming fear and arrogance, fostering cronies having little conscience of their actions. Compassionate caring or questioning individuals get isolated or disempowered, etc, sound familiar? History & contemporary Australian aviation management is full of it. Another example is media, where Murdoch is cleansing the effects from his operations using our ABC’s resources, (another ABC board decision put in by prior Govt), yet no organisation has ‘dumbed down’ and monopolised our media in South Aust as much as NewsCorp… but that’s another story. The reason we mention this is as Adelaide’s main Airport was massively enhanced to carry millions of International passengers, their way of public ‘consultation’ was to run a series of pathetic ‘Mr Celebrity’ airport management advertorials… As Adelaide’s population is aggressively grown to ~2M in 2025, the air traffic will wreck a lagre part od the NW & N of the City… do they ever learn what happened to the poor folks in W Sydney? In Parafield’s case, we remain amazed how so few benefit by adversely affecting so many, because our authorities deny the adverse effects of their pollution.

About Commercial in Confidence, your airfield belongs to you. All citizens of your Council should be entitled to full transparency. Hiding behind ‘C&C’ has little merit in this case except guise who is going to make a packet at your expense.

Morgan paints a pretty picture that I’m sure the residents of Parafield SA would find most amusing but the fact is the community would love to get rid of him and his school and the whole airport along with it. Their actual experience is that it is destructive to their town. Of course I’m sure Mr. Morgan could draft a letter making it sound as though the community showed “overwhelming support”.

“Truthful”? “no lomger plan to build at Maryborough” Then why is the propaganda mill still in operation? Why are we still discussing this? BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW IT ISN’T TRUE.

And do be careful of the interpretation of the words “occasional” and “planned” in that letter. Imprecise descriptives can be very useful to a skilled propagandist.

Mr. Morgan’s job is to put forward the interests of his Chinese employers, not the interests of Hervey Bay or it’s residents. I would say he is underpaid.

While I respect the need for ‘commercial in confidence”, I believe our council hides
behind it. I stand to be corrected, but in my view ‘commercial in confidence” only
relates to terms and conditions, the clients name and money. Useing the FTG as
an example. Number of flights day/night, area covered, impact on residents and
financial viability of Maryborough airport all fall outside of ‘commercial in confidence’.

Sadman

The school is gone now but there are still many questions that need to be asked – we keep hearing the phrase open and transparent being requested of council and I still don’t feel this is happening regardless of how hard Sue and some of her counterparts try.