War Chest for Bankstown Airport Battlers
Bankstown flight school operators Ray Clamback and Aminta Hennessy are “overwhelmed” by a surge of financial support for their David-and-Goliath legal battle with the airport owners, Bankstown Airport Limited (BAL).
BAL now wants their business to pay new rental rates it has set that are 100% higher than their previous rental. BAL says it has not only assumed control of the site as the head-lease holder, but also now owns the $1m hangar the partners had built on the site at their own cost – and wants to rent it back to them.
The case is being closely monitored by aviation businesses at all capital city general aviation airports, particularly the GA facilities at Archerfield, Bankstown, Jandakot, Moorabbin and Parafield. Similar reports reflecting the apparent abuse of monopoly are rife at most of these airfields.
In one classic example, the premises of the Boy Scouts Association at Archerfield airport were bulldozed by the new owners without explanation or consultation.
Similar earthmoving initiatives at Hoxton Park were among the first acts of BAL when it received government authorisation to waive its contracted obligations to retain all three airports – Bankstown, Camden and Hoxton Park. Hoxton Park was subsequently closed as an aerodrome with government consent, and to mark the occasion bulldozers were immediately used to demolish essential aerodrome infrastructure.
Operators also complain that new GA airport owners including BAL have significantly degraded air safety safeguards by reassuming airport land for non-aviation usage. Hoxton Park’s north-south runway was demolished, and the only north-south surviving GA runway in the region, Bankstown’s Runway 18/36, has also been demolished.
These actions seriously degrade air safety because all light aircraft have maximum crosswind components which cannot be exceeded during takeoff and landing, leaving young and inexperienced student pilots at risk of having nowhere to land when one of Sydney’s “southerly busters” is blowing. The flight training industry is also deprived of the capability of teaching pilots crosswind landings – an essential safety skill.
The matter, now before the Supreme Court of New South Wales, is considered a test case for other victims of airport privatisation – most of them small to medium sized self-funded businesses. For this reason the partners now have substantial “war chest” funding in the form of donations ranging from $1 to $10,000 to help them fight the demands of BAL’s government-awarded monopoly. Donations have flowed not only in from other businesses around Australia, but from concerned people who just want to help.
Ray Clamback tells us that one of his student pilots adds $1.00 to his payment every time he pays for a flying lesson.
The Australian Consumer Competition Commission has unwaveringly refused to intervene in the growing dispute over monopoly abuse by airport head-lease holders, despite the way it is now threatening managers of firms involved cartel activity with jail or billion-dollar fines. The ACCC has blandly explained that because airport ownerships are monopolies, the question of cartel-type price fixing does not arise “because there is no competition.”
On the other side of the coin ACCC chief Graeme Samuel is reported to have warned a meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Sydney: “In the case of serious cartel activity, no matter how fat your chequebook, nor to what lengths a corporation will go to defend the position of its executives, there is no amount of money that will remove the risk of you going to jail. A criminal cartel prosecution will not be negotiable – you will not be able to buy your way out of a criminal conviction and jail.”
AviationAdvertiser has been unable to identify any in-principle legal or ethical difference between the cartel-type conspiracies Mr Samuel is pursuing against top corporate cheats, and the apparently unrestrained abuse of monopoly that threatens GA airport businesses.
BAL’s claims against Clamback & Hennessy (C&H) are based on the premise that it now owns not only the airport land that their business had formerly leased from the government, but also the million-dollar hangar it had built on the land following assurances from the Government-owned Federal Airports Corporation of at least two lease roll-overs on terms that would not be significantly changed.
Their case is based on the question of whether undertakings given by previous government agencies controlling the airports apply equally to the present head-lease holders as prescribed in the lease documents.
C&H are one of the first businesses to legally challenge their rights to a lease rollover at Bankstown Airport, others have simply closed up shop to avoid the litigation expenses. Clamback now believes that: “An average of seven or eight tenants would be affected on every airport, because they all have the same leases as we do.”
The business has since November 2008 been paying double its former rent, not only on the site but also on the hangar it built which was sold without consultation to BAL by the (then) government.
If Clamback & Hennessy win the case half of the increased rent will be repaid to them. If they lose they will be bankrupted, and so, probably, will dozens of similar businesses.
That is why so many GA airport tenants are watching events with intent interest, and contributing to Ray and Aminta’s war chest.
Of interest is the question of why (apparently) no real estate transactions have yet resulted from the subdivision or Hoxton Park aerodrome.
In a best-case outcome this could mean that somebody, somewhere in the Commonwealth government, has belatedly realised that government ineptitude has resulted in victimisation of an industry sector that has long been one of the backbones of our national development; and can only remain so if justice is done.
I thought Clamback’s had given aviation away and have a garden centre instead, have you seen the site lately.
Food for thought
As I understand, Hoxtonpark airfield is up for sale again?
It might be more prudent for Bankstown operators (and interested pilots)to pool there money together with a view to buying out Hoxtonpark airfield for small GA use again, instead of allowing the legal industry take what little money the Bankstown aviation industry has left, fighting a battle they are very unlikley win!
Dominic Casey
Oh please William. You obviously can’t see the issue for the plants. This monopolistic abuse is a serious situation that has implications throughout the wider community, and you try and trivialise it with such a comment. If I was under the threat these hard working people are, I’d have an outlet too, just to remain sane. As far as pilots go you can find no better – I know – I’ve trusted my life to them!
In our article on July 13 titled War chest for Bankstown airport battlers we made the following statement:
“….the premises of the Boy Scouts Association at Archerfield Airport were bulldozed by the new owners without explanation or consultation”
We have now found that part of the information provided to us and published in the article was incorrect. Following is a formal statement provided by Mr Ross Steele of the Scout Association, approved by the Association, which clarifies the sequence of events.
Paul
There was “communication” with Archerfield Airports Corporation [AAC]about the Scout Association of Australia Queensland Branch Inc.’s leases of its Air Activities Centre on Archerfield Airport prior to demolition.
AAC in its communication with the Scouts would not renew the Scout’s leases and required the leasehold improvements be removed activating clauses (e.g. clauses 4.2)b of the site 603 lease document) and the Scouts were therefore legally required to remove the building at the Scouts own cost or become financially liable to AAC for AAC’s costs of demolishing it as AAC had the right in the lease to recover such costs against the Scouts ( clause 4.(2)d)).
AAC “permitted” the concrete slabs to remain in situ as part of those communications.
No part of the building structure was able to be recovered or used by the Scouts as its design precluded relocation or any recovery.
Yours faithfully
Scout Association of Australia Qld Branch Inc.