Greg O’Brien, Kyneton
Macedon Ranges Shire Council has a plan to introduce a local law it says will improve safety around the Kyneton airfield. This is another unnecessary waste of our rate money.
The council says that the Civil Aviation Safety authority does not have jurisdiction over safety matters at Kyneton because it is an unregulated airfield, but as usual with the airfield there is a wide gap between what the council would have us believe and reality.
CASA audits Kyneton airfield and has no concerns about safety of operations there. I found out about CASA’s involvement four years ago when a Kyneton Aero Club member reported me to police for flying a kite with my then three-year-old son on our property in George Street. I did not know it was illegal to fly a kite within 4000 metres of an aerodrome without CASA’s permission. The police threatened to arrest me if I did it again and so I had to apply to CASA to fly our kite which we can now do under restricted conditions.
A CASA flying operations inspector has told me that “CASA will not get involved at Kyneton unless CASA regulations are breached or there are safety implications”.
CASA is not getting involved because there are no safety implications.
So why is the council trying to introduce this local law? It is nothing more than a monstrous invasion of our right to enjoy our own property and to give them power to impose onerous restrictions on what we can and can’t do and to give them the power to impose heavy fines on us for non compliance.
The local law is just the next step in the closely interwoven Kyneton Aero Club and council’s plan to turn Kyneton airfield into another Moorabbin. When that happens we can say goodbye to Kyneton being a nice place to live.
