Wellcamp

[Geoff13]

FT Simple. It is a private business. The costs are irrelevant. The only costs that matter are those used by the developers to do their planning, and let me assure you as a dumb Truckie who has driven past there yard a few times, the Wagners have never called me in for a coffee and shown me those figures:scratching head:. (That in itself is a bit disappointing really I am sure I could have taught him a lot about the cost of running a truck. Not.) One thing I will say about the Wagner operation, is that if you drive around Western Qld with your eyes open you will see that these guys understand business as it works in our region. Whether that will include movement outside our region will remain to be seen.

 

My point is simple, if it doesn't cost the taxpayers it is good. A lot of Toowoomba locals have made good during the building stages and a lot more could make good during operation.

 

The point that seems to be flying over your head here (maybe if you stand on a chair you will be higher and it wont go straight over) is that it is not in competition with Brisbane, but it gives the opportunity for producers west of the great divide to become a little bit more competitive with high priority fresh exports.

 

If the Wagners run out of money, then the Qld taxpayers will end up with a very cheep piece of infrastructure as we have with several tunnels around Brisbane over the last few years.

 

Just as an aside, does your house happen to be on the direct flight path in or out?

 

Cheers Geoff13

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Geoff, it does cost the tax payers, every cent that Wagner's claim on that airport comes of their income tax bill. Someone has to pickup that tax bill, you can't run an economy on only a small fraction of the population paying tax. Every business that owns a industrial/commercial rental property in Toowoomba is going to take a hit through the doubling of the vacancy rate or the depreciated rent revenue due to the over supply. Anyone that has a industrial or commercial building in Toowoomba will pay a premium on finance if they need to borrow to maintain or upgrade that property due to the loss of value and lack of demand. Anyone that bought an industrial/commercial property as an investment is taking a hit.

 

I live in Rangeville, 20kms away Geoff, I get all the TWB traffic plus the Careflight chopper going low under the cloud base as well as the occasional T28 doing aeros of the range.

 

Now if you could tell me at what point the airport is viable, that would be a great help. I am all in favour of the airport if a.) its viable and they don't close b.) TWB

 

I'll be spewing if they close TWB and the Wagner kids decide to bulldoze it and turn it into more industrial properties.

 

 

[dazza 38]

Even though I live on the Gold Coast half the time, I work on the western Darling Downs for the other half of the time near Chinchilla. I heard on the local news that the Toowoomba council have no intention what so ever of closing down the current airport. Actually they have put a fair bit of money aside to up grade the hard stand area.

 

 

[Geoff13]

Ahh here it is. The big fallacy. If he gets tax concessions,then it costs the taxpayer money. How simplistic and wrong that is.

 

If I have a$1,000,000.00 and sit it under my bed, then I give the taxpayer nothing and take nothing from him.

 

If I buy a farm and throw my $1,000,000.00 into it, I cost the taxpayer nothing.

 

If I ask and receive tax concessions from the Gov to lets say build a runway on my farm and upgrade the road to it I pay no tax or limited tax for a period of time, I have still cost the taxpayer nothing, but now he has a better road to drive out and look at my cows, or drive to his farm further down the road.

 

Now assume I go broke and lose my $1,000,000.00. The taxpayer now has use of a road and if the government decide to buy me out at a bargain basement price they also have a runway. Ohh and remember they still have my road improvements. Really no different to me leaving my money under the bed, except now my kids don't get it if I keel over.

 

And lets just for a moment assume that I have lots of chooks on my farm and decide to fly my eggs to Japan because Japanese chooks don't lay enough eggs. So then I decide spend a few more bob extend my runway and fly my eggs off my own farm rather than truck them 5 hrs to an airport. Al of a sudden my farm makes money and the taxpayer gets use of better roads, better employment and the taxes after my concession period expires.

 

So no, tax concessions do not cost the taxpayers anything. They encourage investment along with the associated increases in employment and local economy. And for a limited time the taxpayer may see no return on this simple vote of trust, and in some cases they may never see a return, but just once in a while someones vision will work and the whole region will win from it. I have no idea which way this one will go but I hope for the region that they have got the figures correct and that it booms only time will tell.

 

As for telling you whether the airport will be viable or not as I said I am just a dumb Truckie so I have no idea and nor do I need to know the costs or the break even point so it is pointless asking me.

 

I have repeatedly told you that I don't know if it will work, but it is not my money so it really doesn't matter. Time will tell me whether they got it right or wrong. As we all know time is a great leveler. Personally I hope they have got it right but if the local community continue to show the same negative attitude to it that you do, then it may be a little more difficult. I am an optimist though and I tend to think that the great unwashed including myself will support the efforts and matbe just maybe it might work.

 

Cheers Geoff13

 

 

[fly_tornado]

The Toowoomba mayor wants to build a big conference centre, his legacy for the city. There is one in Highfields which is about 15 minutes out of town which isn't good/big enough for the non existent conference market and the obvious site for it would be TWB. I think you need RPT to hold conferences and you are facing stiff competition from Brisbane and both coasts.

 

 

[dunlopdangler]

Yenn, I betcha didn't think this can of worms would manifest itself here

 

 

[Geoff13]

Good eh

 

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Geoff you can easily avoid tax in australia by using international tax shelters, the more money you have the more options you have.

 

 

[Geoff13]

But that is not the point of this discussion. This is about spending money in Australia not about moving it offshore.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

This is about how business works not how small businesses work.

 

http://www.smh.com.au/business/adanis-galilee-basin-project-not-commercially-viable-20140905-10cyc3.html

 

 

[dazza 38]

The Toowoomba mayor wants to build a big conference centre, his legacy for the city. There is one in Highfields which is about 15 minutes out of town which isn't good/big enough for the non existent conference market and the obvious site for it would be TWB. I think you need RPT to hold conferences and you are facing stiff competition from Brisbane and both coasts.

I can only go by what I listened to on ABC southern downs radio. IRT my post #104

 

 

[fly_tornado]

this was mooted as the centre but ended up a car park

 

http://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/council-says-cbd-block-could-become-convention-cen/2190636/

 

TWB has the best and probably the option, council can sell off most of the land to pay for the new buildings.

 

The council raised the rents for the businesses at the airport from $3 sqm to $12 sqm, so the pressure is on TWB. Loosing the landing fees from the Skytrans service means the council have to make up the revenues somewhere.

 

I doubt that the TRC would publicly announce they are selling TWB when its still a viable airport.

 

 

[turboplanner]

You should know that pinning FT down is like stepping on a jelly fish - he gets out between your toes.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

The money spent on TWB extending the runway was federal money

 

 

[fly_tornado]

TP I know you old guys are suffering in silence over Abbott and dare not mention his name.

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

Back onto the original question.....Yes there are a lot of private strips within a very short distance of Wellcamp. I'm told for the time being it will remain uncontrolled, but should CASA feel that it's warranted, it will become C class in the future. If that happens, yes it will suck for a lot of people. Yes, I think Toowoomba could use a better airport, and yes again, to will it affect myself and many others negatively. The Wellcamp strip is just under 10 nm from my usual point of take off, and if I track directly to Clifton or Warwick, I pretty much just fly right over it.

I'm about 29 NM SSE of it, which will presumably put me under a reduced CTA lower limit when they put in an ILS. But if you have forgotten the lesson from the big wet a couple of years ago, I haven't; the Toowoomba Range hill, the Cunningham's Gap hill, and the Clifton-Gatton road - which is really a goat track - were all closed for months; and whilst they have been patched up, it will only take another spell of really wet weather to close them all again. The geology means they will never be really satisfactory roads; Cunningham's Gap was still being kept open by a bunch of freight containers, last time I looked. There are three major highways converging on Toowoomba / Warwick - the Newell, the Hume, and the Great Western. The Toowoomba Bypass, which will go under the Toowoomba ridge in a tunnel, will be the only way traffic on those roads can get to Brisbane when bad weather closes the others - and in time nobody will bother with the upkeep on them. The traffic from the Newell and the Hume highways will pass about 50 metres from the eastern end of the Wellcamp strip. Guess what that means for any company trucking export produce to Brisbane along any of those highways. The basis for the airport won't be passenger traffic - that's just the gingerbread. I used to assist Heavy Lift, who operated two 727-200 flights a week out of Brisbane to New Guinea - always full of freight; and they were small beer in the Brisbane freight traffic. The Brisbane freight terminals will have to go when Brisbane gets a second runway - and despite Zoos, that's on the cards; and the freight people know it - they won't get caught with their pants down.

Wellcamp has very little to do with Toowoomba itself; Toowoomba may get some benefit from having a licenced airport rather than an ALA, but trying to make sense of Wellcamp from a purely Toowoomba perspective is just plain silly. Wellcamp is just far enough to the SW of Toowoomba to not be closed by low cloud on the Toowoomba scarp. Wagner is a crazy as a fox. The rest of you are sillier than rabbits, except for Geoff, as far as I can see.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

DAfydd you are forgetting the $157M that has been spent on the Toowoomba range. It won't get shutdown, Cunningham's gap is designated as a secondary road as the bypass is a toll road.

 

 

[rankamateur]

I want geoff to enlighten me. I am interested to know why my assumptions about the airport are wrong. So far the old codgers have just mumbled on and on about the airport without any real facts

Geoff is a truck driver, not an airport manager, you are just focusing your spite on him now instead of Wagners, even less OK than before!

 

 

[fly_tornado]

What spite, I am talking facts and figures and he is spouting rubbish

 

 

[Geoff13]

I was once told never to argue with a fool because he will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

 

For better than 40 years I thought that was crap but FT you may have convinced me in one night that it is not.

 

You enjoy your 19th century up there in the sticks now won't you.

 

Now just remember who accused whom of talking rubbish and excuse me whilst I continue to live in the 21st century.

 

And for all you guys sitting back enjoying the show, we need a popcorn icon.

 

Cheers Geoff

 

 

[Dafydd Llewellyn]

DAfydd you are forgetting the $157M that has been spent on the Toowoomba range. It won't get shutdown, Cunningham's gap is designated as a secondary road as the bypass is a toll road.

I didn't say it would; my bet is that it will end up like the Mt. Lindsay Highway. Unless /until the QLD Govt is prepared to tunnel under Cunningham's Gap, that's always going to be a secondary, fair-weather road. The Toowoomba Range requires rather less of a tunnel, I expect.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Ahh here it is. The big fallacy.

Wrong thread Mate, the Global Warming stuff is in the other thread.

 

 

[Geoff13]

Wrong thread Mate, the Global Warming stuff is in the other thread.

Dont get me started on that little gem. I am supposed to be studying for my XCountry exam here, and this is stealing valuable time of me.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Dont get me started on that little gem. I am supposed to be studying for my XCountry exam here, and this is stealing valuable time of me.

Cool.

 

I like your avatar but aren't you worried about fleas and mites?

 

 

[Geoff13]

Fleas would suggest that she goes outside. She spends more time on my lap or under my feet than she does outside.