[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 08/07/22

Sandy's take/disgust, via the UP...  

CASA prying into financial matters

Quote LB

“CA Act provisions relating to financial viability of AOC applicants have been in there for decades, and CASA has been prying into the financial arrangements of AOC holders - to the extent those arrangements are relevant to financial viability - for that long.”

In my recollection maybe that was the position for quite a few years but for most of my career in training and charter that interference was resisted and not legal. Whatever that timeline of that particular concept, that government should make judgement about the viability of a business, is of course completely at odds with our freedoms and against free enterprise which confers our high standard of living. It is also unintelligent by virtue of the undeniable fact that a government instrumentality will never be in possession of all of the facts leading to business decisions, nor have the driving incentives to discover those facts.

Ultimately do you want government to have this power to control our lives and if we confer this power who will decide the limits? Who’s to say that give away your rights you will ever get them back again?

And we should never lose sight of the fact that CASA’s extreme regulatory regime is inimical to a healthy GA sector and makes poor contrast to the rational regulations of the USA, where, according to John King of highly respected King’s Schools (also John was brought to Australia by CASA as consultant) some 70% of USA pilots are trained outside the Part 141/142 flying schools and with no formal syllabus. Shock horror! No syllabus! no hundreds of tick off signatures? Correct, the system allows innovation and individual tailored training followed by a rigorous testing regime before licence issue. Their safety record is arguably better than ours.

Lastly, CASA by its very name, and by its legislated obligation, claims that “safety” is its overriding purpose,
but we know that that is a total nonsense because it makes no rational risk assessments for any of its extraordinary rule changes or administrative actions. In judgment against Angel Flight it’s now clear that the Act doesn’t require any such reality to restrain CASA in any way shape or form. No Ministerial or obvious legal restraint as Glen Buckley has learned.

What a disastrous outcome for Australia, having to import airline pilots! Let alone the loss of hundreds of flying schools, charter operators and maintenance businesses. Huge loss of jobs, loss of airports, a continuing disgrace and blot on our democracy where the notion of giving away government responsibility for aviation to an unelected ‘independent’ corporate monopoly has yet to be recognised by government as a monumental failure of policy.

Cleary an example of failure; by not following the principle of responsible government.

Instead it tried on what seemed to be an expedient way of taking aviation off the books and away from Ministerial responsibility, conceived and executed by the Hawke Labor government with Gareth Evans as Minister. 1988, year of shame. To its credit at the time the Liberal Opposition opposed the creation of the statutory body for aviation but seems to have washed its hands ever since.

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 13/07/22

Via the UP:

glenb

Lead balloon and others

With regard to the applications for bases. These applications were substantial. They included,

A cover letter that very clearly identified the exact nature of the structure.

A Significant Change application. A very comprehensive CASA form requiring high levels of detailed information.

The BPM or Base Procedures Manual. These manuals did not control Company Procedures. That information was in the Group Exposition. The BPM was a “differences manual”. These included such “unique” information geographical dependent information including;

· The ERP. Emergency Response Plan tailored for that location.

· Drug and Alcohol testing procedures after an accident or incident, with local testing centres and contacts.

· Aerodrome procedures for that aerodrome.

· Fuelling procedures tailored to the nature of fuel delivery at the base.

· Any pertinent safety information to that base.

· Etc

Importantly, and perhaps relevant. A comprehensive risk assessment and supporting safety case. These were comprehensive submissions, and to a very high quality. I make that Statement because that was the exact wording that CASA used. They were very impressed. These risk assessments included attending to scenarios that Lead Balloon has put forward and also the more mundane risks.

Tomorrow morning, I intend to make a Freedom of Information Request for those submissions. Noting that CASA has 30 days to respond, I suggest CASA will make me wait 30 days. Once I receive that application and the risk assessment, I will post it up here. The scenario that Lead Balloon put forward was discussed as part of our risk assessment, and discussed at length with CASA.

We had applied for bases earlier and they had been approved by CASA. In August and October of 2017, I submitted two further applications. These applications were far more comprehensive applications that the earlier ones. These two applications are slightly over one year before CASA “first became aware” of my structure, but they are our first applications as a Part 141 and 142 Organisation. The legislation required far more comprehensive applications than in the CAR 5 regulations.

I appreciate that it will have no legal point to posting that document. What it will do is demonstrate that due consideration was put into these risks and they were considered and addressed.

---

The Base Induction

I had posted this in a much ealier thread but here is the form and procedure that CASA approved 18 months before they first became aware of APTAs structure. This was the procedure for all bases after we were approved To part 141 and 142 in April 2017. I include it because it demonstrates somewhat the "effort" that was being put into doing something actually pretty good. Not perfect and subject to continuous improvement but a good starting point nevertheless. I include it also because it refers to the contents of the BPM or "differences" manual. https://www.dropbox.com/t/Urpcsm3SB9BKJx8Y

 
MTF...P2 

ps An aside...

Which got me wondering to where Mr Crawford is now

---

Apparently here, and it certainly seems that he has some good attributes. About (luamair.com)

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 28/07/22

Via the AP email chains:

28th July 2022.
 
Useful Links
Civil Aviation Act                                 Civil Aviation Act 1988 (legislation.gov.au)
Civil Aviation Regulations                        Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 (legislation.gov.au)
CASRs                                                         Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998 (legislation.gov.au)
 
COMPLAINT TO THE CASA INDUSTRY COMPLAINTS COMMISSIONER (ICC) OF A CASA EMPLOYEE CHOOSING TO PROVIDE CLEARLY FALSE AND MISLEADING INFORMATION TO THE COMMONWEALTH OMBUDSMANS OFFICE INVESTIGATION, WITH THE INTENTION TO PERVERT THE FINDINGS OF THAT INVESTIGATION.
 
Dear Mr Hanton,
 
I write to you in your dual roles within the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), as both the Industry Complaints Commissioner (ICC), and as the CASA Ethics and Integrity Officer (E&IO).

The purpose of this correspondence is to formally submit a complaint to your office of a CASA employee deliberately providing false and misleading information to an investigation currently being conducted by the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office. That investigation being conducted by the Ombudsman’s Office is into the closure of my two businesses and the subsequent direction from CASA to my Employer at the time, that my continuing employment was “no longer tenable based on comments that I was making publicly”.

The person responsible for providing that false and misleading information to the Ombudsman’s Office is Mr Jonathan Aleck, the CASA Executive Manager of Legal, International and Regulatory Affairs.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Mr Aleck is also the sole decision maker within CASA that determined my business of more than a decade was suddenly operating unlawfully and forced it into closure on  23rd October 2018 when CASA sent the following notification to me.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k3qn3qdgoa2uavx/App%20A%20initial%20notification.pdf?dl=0

As the investigation by the Ombudsman’s Office is about the processes and consequences associated with Mr Alecks decision making, it is a possibility that Mr Aleck may be tempted to provide false and misleading information to the Ombudsman’s Office to coverup his alleged misconduct.

Importantly, this correspondence is not a complaint about Mr Alecks conduct. This is a complaint about the truthfulness and accuracy of information provided to the Ombudsman’s Office, and a further opportunity for CASA to act professionally and with integrity and simply tell the clear and concise truth to the office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

As you are aware the ramifications of Mr Alecks “change of opinion” and determination to close down my businesses in October 2018 and with no prior warning, caused significant harm, as could be expected. The notification that my business was now operating illegally, caught me completely off guard, and was not expected.

My family has been significantly impacted by this matter. I have lost my home, and  I have been bankrupted. After CASA closed my businesses, and I obtained employment within the industry, CASA withdrew their approval of me to operate in the role of CASA approved Head of Operations, and directed my employer that my “continuing employment was no longer tenable”, there can be no doubt that I was forced out of the industry that I had spent the last 25 years in.

My wife and I have been left with total assets of $6000. We now rent, and if my wife or I were to stop working for more than 6 weeks, we would be facing homelessness. That is the plain and simple truth, and the inevitability of that situation is traumatic. My physical and mental health has been impacted and my poor wife has had a total of 6 days free of work in the last 1500 days, since CASA did this in October of 2018, as she tries desperately to claw back some level of meagre financial security for our future.

Like most small business owners in Australia, that business that CASA closed, was in fact my Superannuation. The future of my wife and I is bleak, and our latter years will be dependent on social housing. Our life changed significantly on receipt of the notification that the business I had operated for over a decade was suddenly illegal. We have been left destitute.

As the person impacted, by the conduct and decision making of the single CASA employee, Mr Jonathan Aleck, at the very minimum I believe I am entitled to a thorough and well-intentioned investigation, and a written explanation of why CASA took such disproportionate, unnecessary, unlawful, and totally avoidable action against my business. My reasonable expectation of CASA is that they will act professionally and honestly in providing information to the Ombudsman’s Office to facilitate a fair determination.

As you are aware there are three primary issues in that investigation.

1. The sudden reversal of CASA approval for my business, the Australian Pilot Training Alliance (APTA).
   
2. The decision that my flying school of more than a decade, Melbourne Flight Training, was now suddenly operating unlawfully and shut down.
   
3. The direction by CASA to my Employer that I was not a fit and proper person to hold the CASA approved position as the Head of Operations (HOO), based on comments that I was making publicly, yet CASA refuses to identify the alleged comments that I made publicly to justify that direction from CASA.
   

As you are aware, CASA never made any allegations against any safety matter, CASA never stated that we did not have full operational control, never raised any concerns at all about any quality outcomes at all. It was simply a determination by Mr Aleck that my business had suddenly become unlawful against a regulation from 30 years prior. The very same business that had been operating for more than a decade with an industry leading level of safety and compliance.

For complete clarity, I am fully satisfied that Mr Alecks decision making, and actions may not have been primarily motivated by the safety of aviation, but that they were in fact made for other less altruistic reasons, and his decision making may not have had the clarity that it should have had. There are reasons I say this, but they do not need to be attended to in this correspondence. This may be a contributing factor as to why he chose to bypass clearly stipulated procedures in CASAs own manuals, when CASA decide to:

A) Close a business down by cancelling, varying or suspending an AOC, or
B) CASA determine that a person is no longer a “fit and proper” person to hold a position as a CASA approved Head of Operations.

By choosing to bypass these stipulated procedures in designed to protect individuals such as myself from abuses of power by public officials, Mr Aleck was able to operate unchecked, and I was left with no appeal available to be to dispute his change of opinion

It is important, not only for me, but also for the wider industry, for the purposes of investigating if improvements in procedures can be adopted within CASA to ensure that this can never happen again to any other person. It does not seem reasonable that in any industry, the Regulator should be able to shut down a business, effective immediately without a sound supporting case, and particularly so when that owner of the business impacted, has no appeal process available to them against the Regulators determination, and always has shown a complete willingness to comply with any new requirements stipulated by the Regulator.

As you are aware on 23rd October 2018, and without any warning Mr Aleck determined that my business of more than ten years was somehow suddenly unlawful, and advised it was most likely I was to be prosecuted as a result.

Three years later, as the person impacted the entire matter remains inexplicable, in fact probably more so now than before.
There were never any allegations against by CASA against any safety matters, or any quality outcomes, just a determination that it was unlawful against a regulation from 30 years prior. The business had been operating for twelve years and was established almost two decades after that regulation was even written.

It was ludicrous and made absolutely no sense at all. Of more concern, it was totally unnecessary and totally avoidable. A well-intentioned discussion could have fully resolved this matter in less than half a day, and that is the plain and simple truth.
Had CASA intended to resolve this matter, there is no reason that it could not have been totally resolved and all the associated harm and trauma avoided. There is no reason that the entire matter could not have been resolved at any time by way of a 4 hour well intentioned discussion between CASA and me. Quite simply, someone in CASA did not want this matter resolved. They wanted my business shut down. It was personal. Whilst I appreciate the difficulty in proving that Mr Aleck acted vindictively and vexatiously against me is most likely not feasible, a genuine assessment of his decision making would have to raise some concerns.

Mr Aleck immediately implemented restrictions on my businesses ability to trade, from that first notification on 23rd October 2018. Those restrictions created an impossible environment to operate a business and deprived me of almost all revenue throughout the next 6-month period, until CASA confirmed their original position in the original document of 23rd October 2018, determined my business unlawful, and forced any remaining customers to leave, leading to the inevitable closure of the business, and significant material harm and trauma.

That trauma was most significant on me and my family but also extended to staff that lost employment and entitlements, to the foreign and domestic students who had their training impacted, to suppliers left unpaid, and businesses dependant on me that were forced into closure as a result.

I appreciate that Mr Aleck will likely try and contend that CASA took no action against my business. As the Owner of that business, and the individual directly affected, please let me be very clear that the restrictions on my businesses were devastating. On multiple occasions, in writing, CASA was made fully aware of the impact of Mr Alecks determination.

Throughout the 8 months between the restrictions on trade being applied, and CASA shutting down the business, CASA was repeatedly advised of the commercial impact. In fact within 24 hours of CASA reversing their approval and placing restrictions on my ability to trade, I had contacted CASA.

That initial notification sent by CASA can be accessed here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k3qn3qdgoa2uavx/App%20A%20initial%20notification.pdf?dl=0

My initial response to that CASA notification can be accessed here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ke7rl708n9vrc2m/Initial%20response.pdf?dl=0

The impacts of that notification were significant. All restrictions remained in place for 8 months until CASA stood by their original determination and forced all my remaining customers to leave, despite that not being the customers preferred option.

• CASA advised I was operating unlawfully and subject to prosecution.
  
• CASA prevented me from accepting any new customers.
  
• CASA contacted all my existing customers within 30 days and advised them that I was operating unlawfully, and that their continuing involvement with my business would subject them also to regulatory action.
  
• CASA restrictions prevented me from marketing my business at a critical time for the business i.e., end of the school year.
  
• CASA placed several short terms “interim approvals to operate” of as little as 7 days. With 7 days surety of operations, it was impossible and unlawful for me to enrol students into our 15-month courses with those 7 days surety of operations. These short-term interim approvals to operate made business difficult and created anxiety on employees, suppliers, and customers over the lack of certainty regarding continuing operations.
  
• Placed an “administrative freeze” on the business whereby CASA refused to process any regulatory tasks including approving personnel, renewing flight simulators, adding on any new courses etc.
  
• Caused enormous reputational damage to the business and to me personally
  
• Bought enormous organisational instability.
  
• Starved the business of income.
  
• CASA allowed the business to remain open, but it was unable to access new customers or retain existing customers. By acting in this way, CASA had not formally “decided”, but rather they were “thinking about it”. As no decision was ever made, the restrictions were never lifted, and I had no appeal process open to me. I was at the complete mercy of Mr Aleck, who may not have been acting with good intent.
  

With those restrictions being in place for over 6 months, Mr Aleck then stood by his initial determination and closed the business down when he forced all remaining customers to leave, despite that not being the customers preferred option.
The business was obviously forced into closure by CASA. On that matter there is no question.

All of this was done without CASA ever providing any supporting safety case.

It was a reversal of CASAs previously issued approvals, that had been held by me for over a decade.

CASA never issued any documentation throughout this entire process that gave me the right to appeal or challenge the change of opinion by Mr Aleck. I was completely denied procedural fairness and natural justice. These are clear breaches of CASAs obligations in administrative law, as outlined in CASAs own procedures. These include thespecified  procedures to be followed when CASA  close down a business by “suspending, cancelling, or varying an AOC’ as they did with mine. CASA completely bypassed these stipulated procedures. These procedures can be accessed via CASAs Enforcement Manual located here.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/960oiyktzvgqi99/Appendix%20E%20CASA%20Enforcement%20Manual.pdf?dl=0

Similarly, CASA also completely bypassed all of their own procedures in that same Manual, when they determined that I was not  a “fit and proper person” to hold the formally CASA approved position of Head of Operations (HOO) and directed my Employer that my continuing employment as the HOO was “no longer tenable based on comments that I was making publicly”, although CASA fails to identify to me what those “ comments that I was making publicly”   were, despite CASA using those “comments” as the basis to force me out of the industry. Once CASA had declared that I was not a “fit and proper person”, I was effectively unemployable in the flight training industry where I had worked for over 25 years. Having lost my two businesses, I was now forced to exit the industry I loved.

The entire matter of closing down my business is absurd. I had been operating in that same structure for the last six years, until Mr Aleck suddenly declared it unlawful in October 2018. I am fully satisfied that Mr Aleck was the sole decision maker throughout this entire matter, and that he was abusing his significant power.

What made this even more absurd is that two and a half years earlier, CASA had worked side by side with me, for hundreds of hours, as I invested many hundreds of thousands of dollars in systems, procedures and personnel to become one of Australia’s first schools to get  CASA accreditation as both a Part 141 and 142 organisation in April 2017, and we were operating in the same multi base structure that CASA would later, suddenly determine to be illegal in October 2018, and deceptively claim that they were not aware of. It is such a ludicrous assertion, and so clearly false and misleading.

As you are aware, I am fully satisfied that Mr Aleck, the sole decision maker in closing my business. drew on no supporting safety case, no regulatory breach, no identified concern against any quality outcome whatsoever. You simply need to ask him, to put forward his arguments clearly and concisely. The tenuous nature of Mr Alecks opinion will become immediately obvious. Despite my repeated requests for an explanation, none has been forthcoming. CASA is extremely evasive in providing an explanation for Mr Alecks decisions and actions, and this has been my experience throughout the last three years. To be frank, I believe that there is an attempt to cover up this matter, at the highest levels of CASA.

It is important to understand that I was not disputing CASAs safety case because there was never any safety case put forward by CASA to dispute. CASA have never put forward any safety case at all in support of Mr Alecks decision making. Surely one would expect that such substantial decision making within CASA, such as the decision to shut down a business of more than a decade would be driven by decisions on based on safety with supporting safety cases and evidence-based data. Surely that failure to have any supporting safety case at all, must raise concerns as to the quality of his decision making, and more so when I have made formal allegations before the Senate that he was acting vindictively and vexatiously against me.

That presentation to Senate on 23rd November 2020 where I raised these allegations of misfeasance in Public Office against Mr Aleck, can be accessed here.

https://youtu.be/b_VZCixKm3c

This entire and exact structure that I had been using for 6 years and that that Mr Aleck suddenly declared unlawful in October 2018, had been re-designed from the ground up and formally revalidated 18 months earlier by CASA in April of 2017. Yet inexplicably,18 months later, in October 2018, CASA declare it unlawful and shut it down, then assert to the Ombudsman that they weren’t fully aware of my structure. The level of deception being propagated by Mr Alecks Legal, International and Regulatory Affairs Department is substantive, and easily proven to be so.

Mr Hanton, please note that I have also included by new Local Member for Chisholm in this correspondence, as I anticipate seeking her assistance on this matter.

For Ms Carina Garland my local MP, and other relevant recipients. At this stage it may be worth reviewing two magazine articles from the Australian Flying magazine. One written when APTA was revalidated by CASA and the other after APTA was closed down by CASA. They provide a fairly plain English overview of the background to this matter. The first article was published in early 2018. This is 10 months before Mr Aleck would have the Ombudsman’s office believe that CASA “first became aware of APTA”, and further indicates that perhaps Mr Aleck is being deceptive. It is highly unlikely that a respected industry magazine is publishing a story a year before CASA claim that they first became aware of my business that CASA had themselves approved through a revalidation 6 months earlier.

Those two magazine articles can be accessed here

• APTA before CASA action https://www.dropbox.com/s/5xdbzhba4l4v93j/APTA%20BEFORE%20CASA%20ACTION.pdf?dl=0
  
• APTA after CASA action
  

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k12d43vtnhek75l/APTA%20AFTER%20CASA%20ACTION.PDF?dl=0

For reference for Ms Carina Garland. This matter has attracted widespread industry interest on a discrete pilots forum referred to as Pprune. My particular thread has had over 1,000,000 views and encouraged robust discussion. My particular thread can be accessed via this link. Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA - PPRuNe Forums

When CASA acted to shut down my business, the industry established a crowd funding page, and that can be accessed here. The comments associated with donations make interesting reading. Fundraiser for Glen Buckley by Cale Johnston : Glen Buckley vs. CASA (gofundme.com)
  
I provide the above information as background information to the lodgement of formal complaints that follow.
The response to the three complaints in this correspondence is simple and really only requires the very briefest of responses, and possibly as short as a yes or a no from CASA.

It requires only statements of fact and requires no judgement applied to it. It is not a complaint against a person, it is a complaint against truthfulness, and requiring only clarification of clear statements of fact. There is only one truthful response to each complaint.

To the “trigger” for these three complaints.

I recently had the opportunity to receive a telephone update from the Ombudsman’s Office on progress of the three-year investigation into the closure of my two businesses by CASA in October 2018, and the subsequent written direction to my Employer from CASA that my “continuing employment was no longer tenable based on comments that I was making publicly”, and my subsequent termination of employment as a result of that directive.

That telephone call with the Ombudsman’s office left me in no doubt, that a CASA employee has been responsible for providing information to the Ombudsman Office as part of the investigation that is “false and misleading”, substantially so, and is integral to this entire matter.

Furthermore, that recent communication with the Ombudsman’s office has left me in no doubt that the false and misleading information provided by the CASA Employee has had the effect that the CASA Employee intended when he knowingly provided that false and misleading information. That being to pervert the findings of the investigation.

There is an overwhelming body of well documented evidence to support my allegation, and I look forward to presenting that evidence in full to you, if the evidence provided here is insufficient.

In this correspondence I will limit myself to only the most pertinent supporting information to assist you in an initial assessment of the validity or not of my complaint, and whether you are able to investigate my allegations.

There can be no doubt that the single CASA employee responsible for providing that information, Mr Jonathan Aleck, CASAs second most senior employee, was fully aware that the information was false and misleading at the time of providing that information to the Ombudsman’s Office. It was a considered decision and deliberate.

Mr Aleck has also chosen to omit providing pertinent information highly relevant to the investigation to the Ombudsman’s Office. I am fully satisfied that this was also a considered decision and deliberate.

I am fully satisfied that Mr Aleck acted in this way to pervert the findings of the Ombudsman’s Office investigation, and most likely, in part, to coverup his own misconduct, and his sub optimal decision making.

These are not “matters of opinion” or “grey areas” that I am referring to. These are gross misrepresentation of facts that have been presented to the Ombudsman’s Office. The complaints that I will put forward will only require short but truthful responses. The answers are either black or white. There are no grey areas.

Truthful responses will clearly indicate that the information previously provided by CASA to the Ombudsman’s Office was false and misleading.

Any CASA Flight Operations Inspector (FOI) with more than 10 years’ experience with CASA will be able to assist you in arriving at the truth, alternatively the CASA CEO Ms Spence would have prompt access to truthful information, should she choose to obtain it.

These are matters where the truth can be readily obtained. The matters can be easily clarified so that there can be no doubt. I urge you in this investigation to cross check any information that is provided to you by Mr Aleck. Unlike the Ombudsman’s Office you have the advantage of access to more than one point of contact, so accessing truthful information and fact checking will be more easily achieved by your office, rather than the Ombudsman Office, which is dependant only on information that Mr Aleck is responsible for providing.

Due to the substantive nature of the false and misleading information, I have been compelled to request that the Ombudsman hold off releasing any final report until these matters can be clarified by CASA. At this stage the Ombudsman Office is holding off finalising the report, based on my request, and to provide CASA the opportunity to be truthful.

It is not reasonable or fair for the many people impacted by Mr Alecks alleged misconduct, that the Ombudsman’s office arrives at a determinations or findings based on significantly false and misleading information, provided by that same CASA employee, and potentially to cover up his own misconduct.

Understandably the Ombudsman’s Office is likely to have trust and confidence in information provided to it by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, and particularly so when one the most senior and highly experienced CASA Executive Managers is providing that information.

It would be a reasonable expectation that the Ombudsman’s Office should be able to depend on the truthfulness and good intent of any information provided by CASA. The Office is likely to receive that information, reasonably believing it to have those qualities. The perceived “trustworthiness” of CASA may require a lesser amount of supporting evidence. i.e., CASA may be trusted on their word, and that has been my experience.

The CASA employee would be fully aware of that credibility imbalance between an individual such as myself, and information provided by himself as the second most senior executive at CASA. If the senior CASA Executive was aware of that credibility imbalance, he could potentially use it to his advantage, and most especially when providing information to the Ombudsman’s Office that is false or misleading. It could not reasonably be expected that the Ombudsman’s Office would be able to easily identify the truthfulness or not of the information provided, and more so when it is provided by someone of Mr Alecks senior position as the second in charge of CASA.

My only reasonable assumption is that this grossly false and misleading information has been provided with the intention to alter the findings of that investigation The information provided is substantially and materially misleading and false. I am fully satisfied that I have an overwhelming body of evidence to support that allegation.

I have personally witnessed this same CASA Employee be responsible for providing false and misleading information to the current Senate Inquiry, and now also to the Ombudsman. This employee has had allegations made against him previously. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. As I have witnessed it previously, as others have, it is reasonable that I have concerns about the intent to with which information is provided to the Ombudsman’s office, and most especially when it is provided by the same person that I raise allegations of misfeasance in public office against.

I appreciate the seriousness and substantive nature of my allegation. I stand fully behind it, and I understand that I am fully liable if my allegations are found to be false or vexatious. An investigation would clarify the situation one way or another.
I have approached the CASA CEO, Ms Pip Spence directly bringing this complaint of false and misleading information to her attention and calling on her to act and correct any substantial misunderstandings that the Ombudsman’s Office may have developed based on false and misleading information that CASA has previously provided.

Ms. Spence, the CASA CEO has chosen not to correct the misleading information provided; this is despite her having ready access to the truthful information. Some of that correspondence with the CASA CEO on this topic be found via the following link.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1wkdinj8avsyl8j/APPENDIX%20TWO-%20SPENCE%20EMAILS.docx?dl=0

If the CASA employee that I make allegations against is prepared to mislead the Ombudsman’s Office, and the Senate Inquiry, it is possible that they would also be prepared to mislead the CASA CEO. Ms Spence also may be acting on disinformation, although she does have access to other personnel that can promptly advise her on the tenuous nature of CASAs information provided to the Ombudsman’s Office to date, and I again refer her to any CASA Flight Operations Inspector with more than 10 years’ experience, as they will be able to confirm that previously provided advice is false and misleading and provide her the opportunity to intervene, and act appropriate to her senior role within Government.

For that reason, I once again make the same offer I have since Ms. Spence commenced in the role over 12 months ago. I have requested a meeting with Ms. Spence to brief her on the facts and have a well-intentioned discussion. Ms Spence has chosen not to take advantage of that opportunity. That invitation remains in place. I have no doubt that if Ms. Spence were to provide me that opportunity, the truth could be promptly ascertained, and Ms Spence would be compelled to act. If the CEO of CASA is unable to meet with me, my only option is to submit my complaint via your Office for assessment.

It is not possible for me to proceed with costly litigation in pursuit of the truth and a determination if I have legitimate concerns as to whether CASA will act truthfully and as a model litigant. By CASA demonstrating that it is prepared to mislead both the Senate Inquiry and the Ombudsman’s Office it must be reasonably assumed, that the CASA employee would be likely to repeat that behaviour in a courtroom scenario, in fact it is more likely that the individual would further propagate that disinformation, rather than act honestly and risk highlighting the falsehoods previously propagated. It is this very misconduct that denies me an opportunity for procedural fairness, and natural justice. I trust you can appreciate my position.

CASA has an obligation to act as a model litigant and whilst I certainly don’t intend to go through the entire charter here, I would like to highlight some of the relevant commitments given. The first of these being particularly salient in this matter, as that is in fact the crux of the three formal complaints that follow later in this correspondence.

• “Not requiring the other party to prove a matter which the Crown knows to be true.
  

• Act honestly and fairly
  
• Not causing unnecessary delay.
  
• Endeavouring to avoid litigation wherever possible.
  
• Not taking advantage of a claimant who lacks the resources to litigate a legitimate claim
  
• Apologising where the Crown is aware that it or its lawyers have acted wrongfully or improperly,
  
• The Court also traced the model litigant obligation back to the traditional relationship between the Crown and its subjects and noted that the Commonwealth and its agencies have no legitimate private interest in the performance of their functions and frequently also have greater access to resources than private litigants. For these reasons, the Court held that Australian Government Agencies and their legal representatives should act as moral exemplars when engaging with private litigants.”
  

Quite simply I am asking the CASA to tell the truth. CASA knows the truth of the three complaints that I submit. If CASA acts honestly, I can avoid any further ongoing stress and pressure on myself trying to prove matters true, which CASA already knows to be true, yet claims to the Ombudsman’s Office that they are not. This matter has dragged on for three years. The cumulative stress has taken a toll not only financially, but mentally and physically. It is in fact CASAs continuing deceptiveness on this entire matter and attempts to frustrate any investigation that have caused so much unnecessary and additional cumulative trauma. This is an opportunity for CASA under the CASA CEO, Ms Pip Spence to bring it to a well-intentioned conclusion by simply being truthful and well intentioned.

---

 
Conclusion
I trust that you can appreciate the significance of the Ombudsman’s Office being very clear on the outcome of these three complaints, but may I put the importance of truthful responses into context.
If CASA always permitted on every occasion, and had done since the inception of CASA, more than one flying school to operate under a single CASA authorisation, exactly as I did,
and;
If CASA was fully aware that I had adopted that exact CASA approved structure for at least 6 years,
and;
If CASA has no supporting safety case at all to support their decision to close my businesses.
and;
If CASA can identify no regulatory breach to support their decision to close my businesses
and;
If CASA claim that their regulatory approach is outcome based yet cannot identify any concerns against any quality outcomes at all to support their decision to close my business
 
and;
if CASA have shown a flagrant disregard for their own procedures and obligations under Administrative Law in their Enforcement Manual , and shown total disregard for their own Regulatory Philosophy Our regulatory philosophy | Civil Aviation Safety Authority (casa.gov.au)
and;
if the Owner of the business closed down by CASA maintains that all of the harm caused by CASAs decision to close the business could have been avoided by a well intentioned 4 hour discussion, and CASA is unable to challenge that assertion.
and;

If you consider the enormity of the trauma caused to me and my family, not only financially but also the impact on our mental and physical health,

Then you will appreciate that responses to my complaints are essential in any determination by a third party such as the Ombudsman or some other forum. I look forward to hearing from you.

Respectfully, Glen Buckley

Via the UP comments in reply...

Sandy Reith

GlenB All cards on table. AerialPerspective Comment 2234

Glen, a tour de force of the whole sorry saga, I hope CASA answers in a positive and constructive manner with view to compensation. The CASA CEO should lead because that is her job and if there was ever a case that demands action this is it.

AerialPerspective comments on the negative side of our political landscape and in general will get no argument from many people but ask ourselves a a question.

How do we improve if not through individual effort within the democratic institutions that we’ve inherited?

---

Sunfish

Sandy:

Glen, a tour de force of the whole sorry saga, I hope CASA answers in a positive and constructive manner with view to compensation. The CASA CEO should lead because that is her job and if there was ever a case that demands action this is it.

Sadly no. If "they" can discover one statement by Glen that is capable of being construed to his disadvantage, eg. an error in dates, something that might look like a threat, etc. they will take it and weave a story around it that portrays Glen as a malcontent nutcase who refuses to take "no" for an answer and can be safely ignored.

Unfortunately such sad cases do exist and regularly pester officials about imagined grievances and conspiracies**. I would imagine that Glen has already been labelled as such.

As I have written more than once, Glens complaint would have ended up on Dr. A's desk and he would be writing the letters for the DAS and Board to sign together with the brief to them explaining the situation as Dr. A sees it and asking for their signatures.

Neither the Board nor DAS will know anything about Buckley except what was written in the brief and they will follow the departmental advice contained therein to the letter.

** For example, I was once asked to deal with a nut who kept at the Premiere about a nuclear power plant for Victoria. Since no municipality would permit such a power plant, his solution was to build it on a barge to be anchored in the river Yarra. He complained to the Premiere (Kennett) that he had everything lined up to proceed except that BHP refused to manufacture 200 mm armor plate that he calculated he needed for his barge - they were part of a conspiracy against him and would we help? I forget how I fobbed him off, I think I asked him for details of his patents or something.

---

Sandy Reith

What the CASA Board knows

Quote Sunfish:-

“Neither the Board nor DAS will know anything about Buckley except what was written in the brief and they will follow the departmental advice contained therein to the letter.”

With respect that might be likely but maybe they do have some additional knowledge and it’s a prospect that we should endeavour to build upon. There would be few, if any, more prominent cases of bureaucratic incompetence and completely unjustifiable action against an individual.

In particular the declaration of “not a fit and proper person” and preventing Glen to work in GA would have to be the lowest act of all.

---

Lead Balloon

No, I think the lowest act was Carmody’s accusation, under parliamentary privilege, that Glen had stalked and assaulted CASA staff. So far as I am aware - Glen will correct me if I’m wrong - Glen has not been charged with or questioned by police about either allegation.

---

Paragraph377

Originally Posted by Sandy Reith View Post
Quote Sunfish:-

“Neither the Board nor DAS will know anything about Buckley except what was written in the brief and they will follow the departmental advice contained therein to the letter.”

With respect that might be likely but maybe they do have some additional knowledge and it’s a prospect that we should endeavour to build upon. There would be few, if any, more prominent cases of bureaucratic incompetence and completely unjustifiable action against an individual.

In particular the declaration of “not a fit and proper person” and preventing Glen to work in GA would have to be the lowest act of all.

The CASA CEO and Board will be acutely aware of who Glen is and what the current status of his complaint is. CASA may be all and powerful, but they exist as a barrier between industry and the Minister. A protective cocoon if you will. However Glen has shone a spotlight on several Ministers by going public about CASA and not letting go - speaking on radio, speaking in the media, writing to many politicians etc. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by numerous testicle deficient ministers. And the proof of that is by way of several scalps that have already been sacrificed by CASA - Crawford, Martin, McHeyzer, all rolled/pressured to leave. And if rumour is to be believed, Aleck was also strongly encouraged to retire. Frau Spence is slowly picking them all off one at a time. But all for naught as Glen is all about justice and I imagine that an apology and adequate compensation is the only thing that will make Glen go away.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 01/08/22

Via the AP email chains:

Allegation of false and misleading information being provided to the Senate, and request for CASA to correct that false and misleading information.



31/07/22



Dear Ms. Pip Spence, CEO of CASA.

For clarity, this correspondence relates to false and misleading information being provided to the Senate.

It is not related to my allegations of CASA providing false and misleading information to the Ombudsman which is the subject of the CASA Industry Complaint Commissioner investigation, and an entirely separate matter.

I have included my Local MP for the Electorate of Chisholm, as I anticipate seeking her assistance on these matters. I have provided her office with a copy of my previous allegations of false and misleading information provided to the Ombudsman Investigation, and I have also included this correspondence on the separate matter of false and misleading information being provided to the Senate.

As you are aware CASA closed my two businesses and subsequently directed my Employer that my” continuing employment was no longer tenable based on comments that I was making publicly”. These are the matters are currently being investigated by the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office.

In this correspondence I refer to the allegation made by the CASA CEO at the time, Mr. Shane Carmody.

Mr Carmody made the allegation that I had “stalked and assaulted CASA staff”. An allegation made to the Senators in Senate on 20/11/20.

Allegations that I absolutely refute, in fact the first time I had any awareness that I had stalked, and assaulted CASA staff was when Mr. Carmody raised it on that day, in that forum with the protection of Parliamentary Privilege.

You may well choose to listen to the Presentation in its entirety if you have not previously had the opportunity.

· My presentation commencing from the 12:40:30 mark to 13:21:00

· Mr. Carmody, CASA CEO presentation commencing from the 13:21:00 to 14:03:00 mark.

There are some particular excerpts in those presentations that I would draw your attention to, that are particularly salient to this matter

13:26:35 Mr. Carmody states that allegations that he has misled the Ombudsman Office are “offensive.”

13:26:50, Mr. Carmody the CASA CEO at the time then makes a second statement asserting his integrity where he makes the following statement, “I object strongly and personally to allegations that I have misled the committee. I have not and I stand by my record”

Mr. Carmody has now advised the Committee that he has not mislead the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Inquiry, and then reaffirmed his integrity by advising that he has also not misled the Senate Committee.

Then at the 13; 28:30 mark, less than two minutes later after Mr. Carmody has given those assurances, he continues on and does exactly what he said he doesn’t do.

He knowingly misleads the Senate Committee and very clearly states to the Senate Committee that I have “stalked and assaulted CASA employees”.

The recordings can be accessed here:

Rural & Regional Affairs & Transport - 20/11/2020 08:49:59 - Parliament of Australia (aph.gov.au)

Whilst wanting to keep this correspondence as professional as practical, it truly is like a scene from Yes Minister. The Head of a Government Department states that he would not mislead the Committee, and then proceeds to go ahead and do exactly that i.e. mislead the Committee.

I cannot possibly present this in any other way, other than to call it a blatant lie presented to the Senate for the purposes of damaging my reputation under the protection of Parliamentary Privilege.

I need to be very clear on this.

The first time that I ever became aware of this allegation that I had stalked and assaulted CASA staff was on that day before Senate when Mr. Carmody raised those allegations.

As you will appreciate both stalking and assault are some of the more serious criminal offences that can be committed, with potential prison sentences.

For complete clarity, I never stalked or assaulted any individual in my entire life whether they be a CASA employee or not. Never.

I totally reject those allegations of assaulting and stalking CASA staff.

The purpose of this correspondence.

I acknowledge that there has been a change of CASA CEO, and that these false and misleading statements were made by the previous CEO, before Senate and are in no way attributed to you.

Had I assaulted or stalked CASA employees, as you would be fully aware, there would be some sort of supporting evidence by way of:

· CASA would have filed a police report.

· CASA would have supporting internal communications on the matter.

· The police would have most likely contacted me for a statement with a view to laying charges.

· CASA would have OHS documentation supporting those allegations.

· Witness statements, security surveillance.

· Some medical record of the person assaulted (assuming it was physical)

· Some correspondence on this matter from CASA advising me that I had assaulted and stalked CASA employees.

CASA has none of this supporting evidence, and I know that to be the case because I made a Freedom of Information request for any supporting information that CASA held. CASA was unable to provide anything at all in support of either the allegation of stalking or assault. I was not surprised by that outcome, because I knew it to be a false and misleading statement made to the Senate immediately Mr. Carmody made that statement.

That is not to say that I am not animated and passionate at times, and I do recall one occasion many years ago when I hit my fist on a desk harder than intended to the surprise of attendees, one of them a CASA employee.

This is something entirely different. This is an allegation that I stalked and assaulted CASA employees. These are serious criminal matters with potential terms of imprisonment.

Ms Spence, please understand that I am not seeking any compensation or claim about that false and misleading statement, and you have my word on that, and in writing.

I am simply asking that if you, in your role as the CASA CEO are aware that CASA has provided false and misleading information, it is incumbent upon you to publicly correct those false and misleading statements.

My expectation is that CASA will release a short statement to acknowledge the false and misleading nature of CASAs previous false assertion to the Senate, and very clearly identify that no CASA employee has ever been assaulted or stalked by Glen Buckley. Ever.

If CASA are not prepared to act truthfully on this matter, and CASA maintain that I stalked and assaulted CASA employees, I ask only that CASA advise me of the date. At this stage I have no requirement for any other information other than the dates of either the stalking or assault. Obviously, such serious offences would have occurred on a particular date or a number of different dates.

I have no intention to get into a discussion at this stage as to which offence occurred on what day, and to the nature or the severity of the offence. I can appreciate that CASA may be reluctant to go into that level of detail at this stage. I reiterate, I am only asking that CASA nominate the date/s of the alleged offences.

It does seem entirely reasonable that the person that the allegations were made against is at least made aware of the date that the alleged stalking and/or assaults of CASA employees occurred.

Thankyou for considering my request, and I look forward to your response against this matter only, and whether CASA is prepared to correct this wrong, or if it is a matter I need to seek assistance from my new Labor MP for Chisholm, Ms Carina Garland.

Yours respectfully


Glen Buckley

---

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 11/08/22

Via the AP email chains:

11/08/22

Ombudsman Reference 2019-713834.

Dear Catherine

Thankyou for your time on the phone yesterday (10/08/22).

I think the approach of breaking the matter down into the three topics will assist in handling what is obviously a technically challenging matter.

1. The direction that my continuing employment was untenable.
   
2. The closure of MFT, my flying school of more than a decade.
   
3. The closure of APTA,
   

Today we covered topics one and two only and will talk again regarding topic three.

On topic one, I believe I have communicated the following.

The Head of Operations position requires a formal application to CASA, a CASA assessment and interview, and a CASA approval. Without that CASA approval, an individual is not able to operate in the role of Head of Operations. The position is dependent on that continuing CASA approval. If CASA deem the holder not to be a fit and proper person, CASA has procedures in their Enforcement Manual accessed via this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e4g6j45mpviqon...l.pdf?dl=0

The manual in its entirety is a pertinent read, but I draw your attention to pages 6-33 in particular. It outlines the position of the Chief Pilot. That was the terminology prior to the legislative changes. That role is now the Head of Operations (HOO), being one of the three legislated positions in the legislation. Further details of that role can be accessed here Civil Aviation Safety

Regulations 1998 (legislation.gov.au) at CASR 142.185 and CASR 142.190.

Appendix Four of that same document addresses the “fit and proper person”

The ICC response to this matter is attached for your reference: https://www.dropbox.com/s/h1dwih4f30jb8h...e.pdf?dl=0

As you are aware I believe there was a breach of obligations under administrative law, CASA own procedures, natural justice and procedural fairness.

On 27th August 2019, the CASA Regional Manager sent an email stating that my continuing employment as the “HOO is no longer tenable with the comments that Mr Buckley is making publicly.”

I acknowledge that we had a discussion as to whether that direction equates to CASA declaring me not to be a fit and proper person and therefore not able to maintain the role of HOO.

As you are aware I am of the opinion that is a very clear direction from CASA to the Employer that my continuing employment in that role was no longer tenable. I cannot possibly imagine a clearer direction.

The mere fact that CASA Regional Manager, Mr Mc Heyzer chose to completely bypass CASA stipulated procedures in that determination, should not mean that the decision no longer becomes an accountable decision. I should still be entitled to procedural fairness, as though correct procedures had been followed.

I have attached the link to the “Jason McHeyzer” file for your reference. The entire document makes an interesting read. It is in chronological order, and emails regarding my employment can be found in the latter part of the document: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qkzhwgp5esojnbz/JASON%20MC%20HEYZER%20%20%20%20%20%20%2010%20of%2018.pdf?dl=0

I also raised my strong desire for CASA to identify the comments that I was making publicly. I believe that if CASA send a direction to my employer that my continuing employment is no longer tenable based on comments that I am making publicly,
then it is fair and reasonable that CASA identify to me those comments that their determination was based on.

I point out that the Employer interpreted it the same way that I did as I was terminated on the spot. I advised you that in my opinion the subsequent communications after I was terminated were “back pedalling”

I did clarify the situation with regard to the Employer offering me alternative employment. I have clarified the nature of that “employment”. I was required to set up my own business with an ABN. The Employer offered me approximately 10 hours per week teaching theory classes on a casual contracting basis. Due to the low volume of students that employment continued for approximately 6 weeks, at which stage I left the industry.

Having had CASA remove me from the role of HOO, my options were non-existent.
 
On Topic Two

I explained to you the inexplicable nature of CASAs determination that my business MFT was now operating unlawfully. I refer you to the initial notification from CASA that can be accessed here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k3qn3qdgoa2uavx/App%20A%20initial%20notification.pdf?dl=0

I believe that I made it very clear that there were absolutely no changes to the way that MFT operated. The only change was a change of name of the parent company from MFT to APTA. The trading name MFT remain unchanged.

It is unlikely that anyone within my Organisation would have been aware of any change at all. I had no reason to discuss a name change only, of the parent company, with the pilots. It is likely that the office/admin staff would have been aware.

If CASA have closed my flying school of more than a decade down because there was some change, then it is fair and reasonable that CASA clearly identify exactly what changes there were, that made my school of more than a decade suddenly become an unauthorised operation.

I was suddenly in contravention of s29 of the Civil Aviation Act. Absurdly the correspondence states that the situation does not alter even if

1. I am the Owner and director
   
2. Using my own procedures.
   
3. I am paying myself a fee and
   
4. Using my own personnel.
   

Truly, this is absurd, and must be unlawful. Whilst I disagree with CASA on the wider issue of the “sister schools”, I absolutely have no understanding at all as to how my school of more than a decade suddenly became unlawful, and I think it is incumbent on CASA to provide me with an explanation.

This matter  has resulted in a number of significant consequences. I currently have issues with the tax department, an upcoming case in the Supreme Court as a Defendant, and staff and suppliers rightfully chasing me for entitlements.
In order to explain my position to the Tax Office, Judges etc, I must have a clear explanation from CASA. In a recent appearance before VCAT, my inability to explain the rationale behind the CASA decision making was interpreted as deceit.

That was a very sad moment for me personally and had quite an impact. I cannot put myself in that situation again. 
An explanation from CASA is essential.

Thank you for your time on the phone, and I hope you don’t mind the follow up correspondence. I appreciate that you are dealing with a number of matters in addition to mine. I hope this correspondence and the links can assist you.

I look forward to the opportunity to discuss the third topic when we next chat.

Thankyou sincerely for your time and your ear.

Cheers. Glen.

Plus (via the UP) Lead Balloon's response:

Lead Balloon

As a matter of interest, why was your employer at the time of the McHeyzer correspondence so spineless? If I’d received the email as your employer, I would have - in slightly more diplomatic language - told McHeyzer to go and get f*cked.


On the section 29 issue, I’ll preface what I’m about to say with a statement I’ve made many times over decades of unravelling corporate pea and thimble tricks: Those who wish to enjoy the benefits of the corporate veil have to cop the pitfalls.

In relation to MFT, you keep saying “my” flying school. Given your reference to a ‘parent company’, I assume the AOC under which the MFT flying school was operating was issued to a corporate entity and not you personally. Is that assumption correct? If yes, the MFT flying school was, under the aviation law (at least) the corporate entity’s, not yours personally.

Let’s call that corporate entity ‘Person A’.

You then refer to a ‘change of name of the parent company’ of Person A. If it was in fact the parent company of Person A, the parent was a different entity to Person A.

Let’s call the parent corporate entity ‘Person B’. (I assume that’s APTA?)

We’ll call you ‘Person C’.

Note that there are 3 separate legal persons here, notwithstanding that they are ‘related’. Only one of them has been issued an AOC for the MFT flying school: Person A.

To put this another way, despite Person B and Person C having some control over Person A as a consequence of shareholding and officership, respectively, neither Person B nor Person C holds the MFT flying training AOC. And Person A cannot transfer its AOC to Person B or Person C. That would be like me saying I’ve ‘transferred’ my driver’s licence to my Mum or Dad.

Mere changes of trading names have no effect on any of this. It doesn’t matter whether ‘Person A’ or ‘Person B’ have the trading name Arthur, Martha or McGuirkinsquirter (just as it doesn’t matter whether you change your name to Arthur, Martha or McGuirkinsquirter). The legal person remains the same and has all of the same legal obligations and rights, despite what its name might be from time to time. Despite any and all mere changes of name by any of them, only Person A has authority under the aviation law for MFT flying training.

So here’s the fundamental problem as I see it, based on my understanding of the facts (which I may have wrong - please correct me).

You (Person C) made arrangements such that the business previously being done by the MFT entity (Person A) started being done by APTA (Person B). Fundamental problem: APTA didn’t have an AOC authorising MFT flying training.

I know that, as a matter of practicality, it was all the same humans doing the same things under the same procedures. But they were doing it for the APTA entity, not the MFT entity.

This all may seem extraordinarily silly and artificial but, them’s the pitfalls of the corporate entity benefits.

It’s like an individual who incorporates and is the sole director and shareholder of a company which buys an aircraft and hires it back to the individual at an ‘arm’s length’ rate. Great for limiting the liability of the individual and there may be tax benefits. But…

The company is the legal owner of the aircraft, not the individual. If it’s insured by the company (tax deductible premium), the insurance responds to the liability of the company, not the individual, and the proceeds of insurance are the company’s, not the individual’s (unless the individual is named as an insured along with the company). And there may be implications under the aviation law. For example, under proposed Part 43 as drafted, the aircraft is used ‘for hire’ and, therefore, 100 hourly inspections (along with annuals) would be required. The individual might claim that the aircraft is ‘really’ the individual’s and there’s no hire ‘really’ going on because the individual is in control of everything but - alas - that ain’t how the law sees it.

I hope that makes some sense and, for your sake, that my reading of the facts between the lines is mistaken.

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 18/08/22

Via the AP email chains:

17/08/22



Dear Ms Pip Spence, CEO of CASA,

I understand that you are in the process of considering my request for CASA to publicly retract the allegations of Stalking and Assault that I am alleged to have committed against CASA employees.

As you will appreciate this matter in its entirety, is about “intent,” and the nature of that intent i.e. well intentioned or not well intentioned.

It’s not really about any safety concerns, regultory breaches, degraded quality outcomes, nor any examples offered by CASA that are indicative of any lack of operational control.

If I am to be believed, it’s a matter of a single CASA employee engineering a process to bring harm to me personally, and as you are aware I am fully satisfied that process was engineered by Mr Aleck. Mr Alecks conduct was facilitated by Mr Shane Carmody, the CASA CEO at the time.

It is fact, Mr Carmody’s statements made to the Senators, that I am asking you to retract or substantiate.

Mr Carmody’s presentation was “littered” with information that was clearly false and misleading. It was what can only be described as a character assassination on me, made with Parliamentary Privilege.

As you know, my opinion is that, if you determine that I had in fact stalked and assaulted CASA employees, it was incumbent on CASA to take measures to protect those employees, and that would involve a complaint to the police. That would allow me procedural fairness, and for the allegations to be fully investigated, and resolved. As the nature of the allegations is so substantial, I insist on that process being initiated, if it has not been commenced previously, and CASA chooses not to retract that false and misleading statement.

These are all matters that you are aware of.

In Mr Carmody’s presentation I have noted that he has provided false and misleading information on nine  other occasions apart from the false and misleading statement that I had “stalked and assaulted CASA employees”.

Rural & Regional Affairs & Transport - 20/11/2020 08:49:59 - Parliament of Australia (aph.gov.au)

I would like to draw your attention to one other false and/or misleading statement. At the 13:27:50 mark of the presentation Mr Carmody refers to me as me “describing the experience as a very pleasant journey over a number of years designing his future.”

Mr Carmody was obviously inferring a smooth journey, most likely initiated by me to secure my financial security.

The intent of his comments is obvious.

Mr Carmody chose to mislead the senators.

Mr Carmody failed to mention that the new regulations that applied to all of Australia’s 350 flight training organisations was the largest project ever undertaken by the flight training industry in Australia.

The new legislation presented me with three options.

• Cease trading on September 1st 2017
  
• Continue trading but my business would be unable to continue delivering its current courses. This would result in a reduction of revenue of over 90%, effectively making the business unviable.
  
• Invest many hundreds of thousands of dollars upgrading all systems and procedures via a rigid CASA procedure to the far more burdensome legislative requirements in order to continue operating as the new category Part 142 School.
  

I chose option C, and began a two year process requiring an enormous investment of both time and money to be one of the very small minority of flight schools that was ready for the deadline of September 1st 2017.

After assurances from CASA that the legislation was proceeding, as planned on September 1st 2017, I activated my new Part 141/142 compliant multi base structure that I had been using for many years, in April 2017, approximately 6 months before the deadline.

Weeks after I activated that structure fully compliant to the new regulations, CASA reversed their decision, and postponed the introduction of the legislation. This reversal by CASA cost me several hundred thousand dollars.

The truth is that it was path I was forced down by CASAs legislative changes, that required an enormous investment.

Mr Carmody’s comments about me describing the experience as “pleasant” are not only insulting to me personally, but I am sure they would be insulting to the highly professional CASA employees that had put so much of their time into the very substantial project.

Ms. Spence, please appreciate that this is not about the semantics. It is about a very carefully engineered process by a small number of current and past CASA employees.

It is about the “intent”. The intent of Mr Carmody’s presentation was not well intentioned. It was false and it was presented to mislead the Senators.

As I have advised, I am not seeking a prompt response from you. I am seeking a well-intentioned, and well considered response.

If you feel there would be some benefit in me addressing all 10 false and/or misleading statements prior to CASAs formal response, please advise and I will respond within 48 hours with that completed document.

I thank you in anticipation of your well-intentioned response,

Glen Buckley.

P.S. Whilst I am not apologising, I do acknowledge that you are relatively new to the position, and were not involved in the “problem”, although the burden of the “solution” has become yours.

(For the UP commentary that followed see - HERE)

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

UP commentary continued - 

Sunfish

LB, your question is rhetorical. “how would APTA know? the answer is the same as that of the local flying school. APTA relies on trust - exactly the same way as the local school.

Short of a full blown telemetry system (eg ACARS) all operators rely on their staff to tell the truth in a timely manner and follow the procedures. If they can’t be trusted then there is no way in hell that ANY system can generate an accurate outcome.

‘’By definition, APTA surveillance can only ensure by audit that (a) Members know how to use the systems. and (b) Members are trustworthy.

CASA is entitled to ask APTA about matter (a) - which involves training. Item (b) is satisfied by the application of the fit and proper person test.

To put that another way; a mate was until recently a training and checking Captain on a very, very major international airline. The assessment of a pilot by him is still a matter of trustworthiness- and he has at least one story about this subject.

It is not possible to guarantee that humans will always behave and CASA has no business requiring APTA to do the impossible.

---

Lead Balloon

It is not possible to guarantee that humans will always behave and CASA has no business requiring APTA to do the impossible.

True.

But I’ll guarantee that humans make mistakes and, occasionally, even deliberately break rules. I used the example of GA aircraft defects and GA aircraft maintenance releases for the reasons I explained.

It's not about 'guaranteeing' that each and every contravention will be detected.

The answer “we trust everybody” is not, in itself, enough for any kind of complex system involving humans. I’ve yet to see a fraud control policy in any big organisation that is one sentence: “We just trust everybody.” (One of the ways in which auditors detect fraud in organisations: Their books are perfect and nobody’s ever made a mistake with the organisation’s money.)

I think “trust but verify” is the cliché required approach, with practical actions available when contraventions are inevitably detected.

The question: “What is APTA going to do when it finds out a 'base' instructor has not been recording defects?”, is a perfectly reasonable one and does not set the standard at impossible perfection. The question assumes a contravention has occurred. But there has to be some way of detecting some contraventions, then finding out whether they’re a mistake or deliberate or whatever, then doing something practicable about it.

We’ve been through the comparison with a ‘standard’ local flying school before and you, too, need to get your head around the key difference between a ‘standard’ flying school and the ATPA structure before it collapsed. The AOC holder at the ‘standard’ local flying school has direct legal control over most of the wandering cats that can cause problems. An officer of the AOC holder, or the AOC holder him or herself, are usually physically there during much of the activity. (How many instructors do you reckon instruct at a ‘standard’ local flying school without having any relationship as employee of or contractor to the AOC holder (unless, of course, that instructor is him or herself the AOC holder)? That AOC holder has legal and effective options at his, her or its disposal to detect and deal with detected contraventions in the course of flying training under that AOC. You listed those options earlier in this thread!

But APTA didn’t have those options because APTA didn’t have enforceable agreements between it and most of the wandering cats at the ‘alliance’ ‘member’ ‘bases’. And I’m not talking about an agreement with a single individual or a corporate entity at the ‘base’. There were other cats wandering around at those bases, with no binding legal relationship with ATPA. I’ve said it before: It’s a tragedy that this gap was not picked up and filled early in the development of the APTA structure and CASA should have picked it up during the consideration of the first application for a variation to APTA’s AOC to cover an additional ‘alliance’ ‘member’ ‘base’.

And I’ve also said before: The certification system for flying training in Australia is regulatory overreach. But I can’t change that. While the system is what it is, I’m trying to help Glen understand the arguments he’s up against, because I’ll bet my bottom dollar that CASA will have made and will continue to make this kind of argument (among others). It is what was in and between the lines of CASA's March 19 email, so I'm not revealing anything surprising.

---

sagesau

Regardless of the detail and/or legality of what happened, at the very least CASA have demonstrated that they are incapable of administrating civil aviation in Australia. By working with industry (in this case Glen and APTA/MFT, aunt gertrude, george, many other countless aviation organizations shafted by CASA or whoever you want to call them) for an extended period of time (in this case a couple of years) to then pull the pin at the last minute with no previous demonstrated concerns shows incompetence. They either don't have processes in place to know what they are doing, they aren't following their own processes or some combination of that. The slightest measure of management would have had multiple opportunities to alter the process Glenn was following and/or provided the specific guidance/direction necessary to ensure a workable outcome.

Bottom line CASA didn't. They led Glen (and countless others) down the garden path where they proceeded to introduce them to the CASA long pointy object. QED

---

Lead Balloon

Yep. CASA in effect encouraged APTA down a path that ultimately led to … a CASA trap. The left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.

The second sleaziest aspect of the process (so far) is CASA’s current pretence that it did not know the details of the APTA structure and the relationship between APTA and the people, premises and aircraft utilised by ‘alliance’ ‘members’ to deliver flying training. (The sleaziest being Mr Carmody’s allegations against Glen, under parliamentary privilege, of assault and stalking.)

---

Sandy Reith

The legalities and reasons for certification

On the other hand LB’s comprehensive explanations are valuable and do point to CASA’s view of the world. A world of beautiful symmetry of regularity that is, unfortunately, unreal, unworkable in practicality, given the complexities and costly procedures that it imposes. In this case by force on a demoralised and shrinking training environment for the VH registered segment of General Aviation(GA). GA provides the most important training ground for various areas that are directly of value to the community at large. For example the various emergency areas of police work, firefighting, air ambulance. In addition charter for business and government and the crucial work of the aerial application industry. Therefore the Australian community suffers.

Certification, just what value does it confer to the community? It does create a colossal amount of work for the monopoly provider CASA, and generates a considerable amount of fees that it extracts from those flying businesses that cannot operate without certain certifications. In the USA one can teach flying without holding a flying school certification. According to John King of King’s Schools about 70% of USA pilots are taught by independent instructors. John King was contracted for advice by CASA some years ago, a highly regarded GA operator. The fact that the USA trains more GA pilots by far than any other country and has a vigorous GA sector demonstrates that our extreme preoccupation with certification in this area is not justified, a costly aberration against the National interest.

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 01/10/22

Via the UP:

The Bad faith mental element Continued


“Attempts to resolve the contract issue.

Mr Aleck has led the Ombudsman’s Office to be of the view that CASA made a number of “good faith attempts” to resolve the contracts issue.

That representation is very far from the truth, and I will attend to that here.

Recall that the crippling trading restrictions dealt with, in detail later in the “Damages section” will not be lifted until Mr Aleck is personally satisfied with the wording of our commercial agreements.

A simple task that could and should have been completed within a matter of hours was dragged out unnecessarily over 8 months. This was simply a task of putting CASA required text into our commercial agreements. Within hours of CASA providing that text at any time after October 2018, or preferably years prior, this matter could have been finalised. I was dependent on CASA clearly and concisely advising what they require in our commercial contracts. There was no resistance at all from me. Mr Aleck was able to maintain the crippling trading restrictions on the business for a staggering six months, while denying me any right of appeal while he “thought about the wording that would satisfy him” and refused to make a decision, despite me calling on him to do so.

As I have stated previously, there is absolutely no reason that this entire matter could not have been resolved in a matter of hours.

On every occasion that I met a CASA requirement and embedded it into the commercial contracts, CASA would stipulate a new requirement. It was increasingly obvious that there was little intent to resolve the issue of the “contracts”. I was chasing a moving target.

Some important considerations and underpinning knowledge here:

· It’s important to recall CASAs alternating narrative. First, my structure was deemed unlawful by Mr Aleck, then after a couple of months, as that position became tenuous, he moved over to the “Temporary Locations” procedure that we utilised to induct new members. This exact process that we adopted was the exact procedure that CASA had suggested to me and approved years earlier. Once CASA realised that it was in fact their own approved procedure, there was no option, either lift the restrictions, which is exactly what should have happened, or find a new topic to maintain the restrictions on the businesses ability to trade. That topic now became the “contracts” issue, and the restrictions on trade remained in place, until that was resolved to Mr Alecks satisfaction.

· This requirement for CASA to be involved in the wording of the “commercial” agreement between the Members was a new and unique requirement that Mr Aleck placed on my business only. No other Operators, including mine, had ever previously been required to hold a CASA approved commercial contract. CASA has no such contracts for any operator on file. There is no legislative or safety argument to suggest CASA should have any involvement. Mr Aleck was not compelled to place those restrictions on the business for eight months while the wording was considered by CASA, it was a considered decision by Mr Aleck. He would have been fully aware of the commercial and reputational harm that would be caused by his action, and I advised CASA on multiple occasions in detail of the commercial and reputational harm being caused.

· In fact, I truly do not believe that Mr Aleck had any valid basis to stipulate this requirement for CASA to even become involved in commercial contracts. It is critical that the reader has an understanding of what an “Exposition” is, as opposed to a “commercial agreement. The commercial agreement being the document that CASA insisted on becoming involved in. Once the reader has an understanding of the difference between the Exposition and the Commercial Agreements, it becomes increasingly obvious that the requirement by CASA is quite bizarre.

The “commercial agreement” is simply the contract that the majority of businesses in any industry will have with their customers, outlining the “business” and “financial” aspects of the relationship. As it is commercial in nature, and not related to safety or compliance, CASA has traditionally not been involved in these arrangements, and has no legislative obligations to do so. The commercial contract is a normal part of doing business. This was not only a case of CASA wanting us to have commercial contracts, but also wanting to stipulate the wording in those commercial contracts. Unusually CASA refused to become a signatory.

The “Exposition” on the other hand is a comprehensive suite of documents of several thousand pages. The Exposition is a CASA requirement, and I will draw on CASAs own definition of what an Exposition is;

An Exposition is a document, or set of documents, which describe how your organisation will conduct its operations safely. It sets out both for CASA and the personnel involved in your operation how you intend to comply with all applicable legislative requirements and manage the safety of your operation. The relevant regulations will outline what you must include. It will include information about your organisation, personnel, facilities, policies, systems and procedures for conducting your activities.

A flight training organisation is required to describe procedures by which the operator conducts and manages its training activities, including the supervision of instructors and trainees. Your exposition must accurately reflect how you will conduct your activities. It needs to be written and structured in a logical way. This will ensure the relevant parts can be readily identified and provided to your personnel who are responsible for complying with them.

Example, CASR 142.340 requires a Part 142 flight training organisation to describe procedures by which the operator conducts and manages its training activities, including the supervision of instructors and trainees. Your exposition must accurately reflect how you will conduct your activities. It needs to be structured in a logical way. This will ensure the relevant parts can be readily identified and provided to your personnel who are responsible for complying with them. The procedures in your exposition should also provide enough detail so that your personnel can conduct their activities consistently in line with your intentions. Each procedure should address, where required.

· What must be done?

· Who should do it?

· When it must be done.

· Where it must be done

· How it must be done

· Record Keeping

· How the procedure is monitored and approved

Once the relevant authorisation has been issued by CASA, you are obliged to conduct your activities in accordance with your exposition.

Below is an extract from CASR 142.340. This link outlines the regulatory requirements for the contents of the Exposition.As stated before. If CASA required any structural or significant changes it was essential that they are contained within the Exposition, not a commercial contract.

CIVIL AVIATION SAFETY REGULATIONS 1998 - REG 142.340 Part 142 operators--content of exposition (austlii.edu.au)

· The Exposition document that CASA is heavily involved in and would be where I would expect matters of operational control to be contained. The “commercial” agreement between a business and its customers traditionally have not been something that CASA has any involvement in.

· Furthermore, it seemed unreasonable that Mr Aleck would stipulate CASA requirements into a commercial contract and not be prepared to be a signatory to that contract. I have no legal training at all but surely CASA has no right to “interfere” in the contents of commercial contracts, and most especially if they will not be a signatory. Nevertheless, I showed no resistance at all and was willing and able to do whatever CASA required in order to have the trading restrictions lifted. I just needed CASA to tell me what they wanted.

· It is also important to understand that when CASA wrote to me in October 2018, notifying their intention to close my business, they called for me to provide copies of commercial contracts. I advised CASA that I had provided them multiple copies over the preceding years, including to Mr Graeme Crawford, the Executive Manager of the Aviation Group and CASAs second in charge at the time. CASA denied this, I showed irrefutable evidence. CASA was now in a difficult situation. They had called for contracts, and now discovered that they already held them. Although there had been no requirement, I had provided them as a matter of courtesy. CASA was now in a difficult situation. CASA now had no safety case, no regultory breach, the Temporary Locations procedure had been found to be their own procedure, and now CASA realised that they already had the contracts. Mr Aleck had by now pushed himself into a corner. Rather than admit error, and work with good intent to resolve the matter, he chose a path forward where the trading restrictions would stay in place until we could adjust the wording in the contracts, to his satisfaction. As I was attending to his opinion only, I was fully reliant on Mr Aleck being satisfied if the trading restrictions were to be lifted. There was now a significant power imbalance, as Mr Alecks application of his opinion would determine the future of me and my businesses. I requested on multiple occasions that the trading restrictions be lifted, while Mr Aleck was “thinking” about it, but CASA refused to lift the trading restrictions.

What really happened here was that CASA kept changing their requirements. On each and every occasion that CASA provided information on their requirements, it was retuned on every occasion within 4 business days and CASA will not be able to refute that. On every occasion, CASA changed their mind, and the requirements were altered.

Finally, after 6 months with the crippling trading restrictions in place CASA again provides me with the “finalised” wording that will once again satisfy CASA.

Once again, I embed that into my contracts, submit it to CASA. CASA approve it, and then shortly, do exactly what they have done throughout the previous 6 months, and change their mind again, and I am right back exactly where I was 6 months earlier, with the trading restrictions in place. It was obvious to me that this matter could not be resolved. There was no intention for it to be resolved.

This happened on multiple occasions, but on the final occasion I was able to obtain a recording of that meeting, and I will provide that recording here. This recording has previously been provided to the Commonwealth Ombudsman, The CASA Board, and the CASA CEO.

Until now, I had not distributed that recording outside of that small pertinent group. I do intend to share that recording with other relevant parties that request it. I am fully satisfied that there is an attempted coverup of this matter, and that Mr Aleck is being “protected”. If my allegations are substantiated, there can be no doubt that the safety of aviation could be impacted by that misconduct, and especially so when considering the seniority of the Executives involved. I sought assistance from the previous LNP Government at Ministerial level, and the CASA Board who refuse to meet with me. My rights under administrative law have been ignored, as have my rights under natural justice and procedural fairness. The trauma and harm caused has been significant. On the basis of the safety of aviation alone, without all the other contributing factors, I feel that I have no option available to me, other than to release that recording, and expose that misconduct within CASA.

The point of this recording. It clearly demonstrates that CASA gave me guaranteed assurances that if I embedded the suggested CASA text into my contracts, they would finally lift the trading restrictions. CASA did not. That recording can be accessed in the timeline below. Understand that the crippling trading restrictions have now been in place for a staggering 6 months. There was no doubt in my mind that this was simply being used as a “delaying tactic”. Mr Aleck was fully aware that each week this matter went on, my family was having to subsidise continuing operations. Initially this was $10,000 per week and increased to $20,000 per week as business continued to decline as a result of the unnecessarily prolonged matter. By now, my own funds are exhausted, and my parents have contributed $300,000 of their retirement fund, to maintain operations. CASA was fully aware of the commercial and reputational harm being caused because I wrote to CASA on multiple occasions on this topic.

Not only commercially but reputationally the business is decimated. We have been unable to enrol any students into our courses, as we only have a limited surety of operations, i.e., 7 days. Customers are transferring away from us, staff are becoming increasingly concerned about their continuing employment, and enormous organisational instability exists.

On Tuesday April 2nd, 2019. CASA provide their “final” guidance on what will satisfy Mr Aleck, in order for the trading restrictions be lifted. It is inexplicable that CASA placed trading restrictions on the business 6 months earlier, and they have only just worked out the wording that they want. A fundamental principle is that “in order for something to be wrong, you need to know what right is”. If CASA deemed my commercial contracts wrong or deficient and in need of CASA involvement 6 months prior, surely, they should have thought about the wording that they wanted way back then, and that failure to resolve the matter is exactly why the matter could not be resolved in 4 hours as it should have been. Irrespective, CASA finally provide the wording that will satisfy “CASA/Mr Aleck” on April 2nd, 2019

My Accountant also contacts me on the same day requesting a meeting. I have now been assuring him for 6 months that this simple matter of the wording in our commercial contracts is about to be resolved. He had grave concerns about continuing operations and asked that I come to his office with my Admin Manager at 11.30 AM on April 4th being the Thursday, in two days’ time.

On Thursday April 4th being the day that we were to meet with our accountancy firm, I emailed Mr Peter White of CASA at 8.30AM in the morning requesting a phone conference call at 11.30AM that same day from the office of my accountancy firm. I advised that the meeting would be about the potential cessation of all operations at APTA, Ballarat Aero Club, Latrobe Valley Aero Club, Simjet, Whitestar Aviation, AVIA and Learn to Fly, and MFT, unless we could finalise this matter of the wording in the contracts. Like me, my accountant could not understand how such a simple matter was not resolved after 6 months. It was imperative that the matter of the contracts was resolved at that meeting. The business could not proceed if the restrictions remained in place. It was imperative that the “interim operations” and other CASA imposed restrictions be lifted and the business permitted to return to “business as usual’.

My accountant had grave concerns about the impact of the restrictions on the business over the previous 6 months, and like me, could not see any basis on safety or law for the CASA actions. It was a change of opinion. By now the business is under extreme financial distress. My accountant was extremely concerned that after 6 months waiting for CASA to determine what they want in the contracts; the matter was still not resolved.

4th April 2019 at 11.30AM The meeting proceeded at 11.30 AM by way of a conference call. In attendance representing CASA would be the Executive Manager Aviation Group Mr Graeme Crawford, and the Executive Manager of Regulatory Services and Surveillance, Mr Craig Martin. Also in attendance were two staff from my accountancy firm and two staff from APTA. Both CASA employees have since left the Organisation.

The point of providing this recording. It includes several very clear commitments from each of those employees, that if I embed that wording, the trading restrictions will be lifted, and I will be able to return to business as usual.

At that meeting, CASA Executives Mr Martin and Mr Crawford individually gave me firm and repeated commitments that if I embedded the CASA suggested text, that was provided to me only two days earlier by CASA into the contracts, then the restrictions on the businesses ability to trade would be lifted. APTA would be promptly approved to continue operations and as CASA termed it, return to “business as usual”

Some points that I should mention regarding some statements made in the recording that I will shortly provide.

Mr Martin urged me to get the contract back as soon as possible, as that was “all we were waiting for”. His tone suggested that they were waiting on me, as they were. I had been waiting on CASA to provide that text for 6 months. They had provided it only two days earlier on the Tuesday.

My accountant queried Mr Crawford as to why it had taken 6 months for CASA to provide the suggested text and lift the restrictions on the business. Mr Crawford advised my accountant that he didn’t have to explain CASAs position and that he didn’t have to talk to him because he was the accountant. It was obvious at that meeting that they were unable to justify the unacceptable timelines and were not going to explain the reason that it took CASA 6 months to work out what it was that they wanted.

There was no doubt in my mind at the conclusion of that meeting that CASA committed that they would lift the restrictions if I returned the contracts with the CASA guidance fully embedded, as they had committed to previously.

RECORDING of MEETING ( PPRuNe supporters please email me defendapta@gmail.com if you would like to register your interest to obtain a copy.

Tuesday 9th April 2019 at 7.33AM It is now four business days after CASA provided their finalised requirements, which I had embedded into the contract. At 7.33AM, the contract is returned to CASA for review by Mr Peter White, the CASA Executive Manager of Regulatory Services and Surveillance at the time, and my point of contact to Mr Aleck. My reasonable expectation at this stage was that the business would soon be able to return to business as usual as CASA had already assured me on so many previous occasions during the previous 6 months, and in order to meet the commitments given by CASA Executives, Mr Martin and Mr Crawford at the Accountants Office days earlier on April 4th,

Tuesday 9th April 2019 at 6.32PM CASA has now received the finalised contracts approximately 12 hours earlier. Peter White the CASA Executive Manager of Regulatory Services and Surveillance at the time, responds and sends me an email titled “I can confirm the content is acceptable to CASA”. Within the body of the email, it goes on to state. “Dear Glen, I have reviewed the draft contract provided this date. I can confirm the content is acceptable to CASA. My appreciation to you and your staff for provision of same…….”

On receiving that email, I was relieved. Something that should have been solved 6 months ago, in a matter of a few hours, had finally been resolved to CASAs satisfaction By now the business had been decimated mine and the businesses funds were exhausted, my parents had put in $300,000 of their own money to ensure I could avoid any staff redundancies over the previous 6 months that the trading restrictions had been in place. Many of my customers and staff had already left because of the previous 6 months uncertainty, and I had been unable to take on new customers or students. The accountant had very firmly advised me that this matter must be resolved immediately, or he would have to intervene. He would not permit continued operations now costing approximately $20,000 per week.

I have now had a commitment from the following CASA Executives

1. CASA Executive Manager of the Aviation Group- Mr Graeme Crawford at my accountant’s office less than a week prior.

2. CASA Executive Manager Regulatory Services and Surveillance- Mr Peter White via email

3. CASA Acting Executive Manager Regulatory Services and Surveillance- Mr Craig Martin at my accountant’s office less than a week prior.

After waiting six months CASA has finally provided the suggested wording, which I have adopted, and the contract has been returned to CASA. I have assurances from all relevant CASA Executive managers with the exception of Mr Jonathan Aleck

Tuesday 9th April 2019 at 10.56PM.

Only hours later, there is yet another complete reversal by CASA and I am back at the start of the process again exactly where I was six months prior when CASA write back to me and ask, “can you hold off distributing for a day or two”. I am back in exactly the same situation that I was six months earlier. I have crippling trading restrictions in place, the damage reputationally and commercially is by now almost irreversible, and we still don’t have the CASA required wording that will satisfy Mr Aleck and permit me to return to Business as Usual.

12th April 2019, (Friday) CASA advise that they will contact me verbally over the weekend.

16th April 2019 (Tuesday) CASA advise that they would like another teleconference.

17th April 2019 (Wednesday) CASA advise that they have some “disappointing news”. The contracts were now not acceptable, CASA put a proposal to me that they would now pursue a different approach, although a new approval for interim operations would now be issued. It was the “interim approvals” that bought so much instability and uncertainty to the business. The matter was still not resolved, and another interim approval to operate is issued. Any remaining confidence in the APTA model by customers and potential customers is now lost as they have been in “limbo” for 6 months already. Their reasonable expectation, as was mine, was that this matter should have been resolved long ago.

24th April 2019 I write to CASA raising my concerns. Attached as Appendix D https://www.dropbox.com/s/yhtzovw4e1...0CASA.pdf?dl=0

There can be no doubt that this matter dragged unnecessarily on for 8 months, until Mr Aleck stood by his initial determination and declared that APTA was unlawful and forced all flying schools to leave APTA, including my own flying school of more than a decade. All of this without me having any right of appeal, as no Administrative Decision was ever made. There were no good faith attempts by Mr Aleck to resolve the contracts issue. There was only changing goalposts, and continual delaying tactics utilised that were completely unnecessary. From my experience as the owner of those businesses, at no stage did I ever feel that there was any intent to resolve this simple matter.

Mr Aleck was the decision maker whose “opinion” needed to be satisfied.

My trading restrictions would not be lifted until he was personally satisfied with the wording in the “commercial” contracts, of which CASA refused to be a signatory.

I was given solid commitments on that recording by CASA on April 4th from my accountants office that the wording they had now provided after 6 months would facilitate the lifting of trading restrictions. It didn’t.

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 14/10/22

Via the AP email chains:

OFFICIAL
 
Hi Glen
 
Given the nature of the allegations you made in your 2022 ICC complaint, I am emailing to let you know that I will be attending an upcoming meeting between CASA and the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office.
 
As you’re aware, no review of your most recent ICC complaint has commenced. That was on the basis set out in my email of 16 August 2022 seeking further information where I noted that if the issues you have raised are still being considered by the Ombudsman in any form then an ICC review may be inappropriate or premature at this stage.
 
My offer to meet with you and any support person you wish to attend stands.
 
Regards

 
Jonathan Hanton   

"..I am emailing to let you know that I will be attending an upcoming meeting between CASA and the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office.." 

Hmmm...luv to be a fly on the wall for that one but I wonder why GlenB hasn't got an invite??   


MTF...P2 

[Wombat]

Probably because a last ditch attempt will be made to brand him a vexatious crank.

[Sandy Reith]

Quote from above, Johnathon Hanton:-

“I noted that if the issues you have raised are still being considered by the Ombudsman in any form then an ICC review may be inappropriate or premature at this stage.”

One has to wonder why would the circumstances of the Ombudsman’s business have anything to do with the Industry Complaints Commissioner (ICC) of the Commonwealth’s independent corporate aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA)?

Those of us that have followed the disgraceful trajectory of CASA’s unjust treatment of Glen Buckley will not be satisfied with the words “may be inappropriate or premature” as excusing a lack of determination by the ICC.

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 20/10/22

Via the AP email chains:

20/10/22

Dear Ms Spence,

I acknowledge that you had a period away from the Office and that would impact on your response times.

I wrote to you on the 19th of September 2022 and followed up on the 6th of October 2022.

The purpose of that correspondence was to seek clarification as to the date that CASA first became fully aware of the specific nature of my operation. As you are aware CASA has led the Ombudsman’s office to be of the view that it was just prior to October 2018, when CASA imposed the crippling trading restrictions on the business. I claim that it was in fact, many years prior.

Irrespective of whether it was at least six years prior as I claim, or it was “just prior to October 2018”, as CASA claimed, there must be a specific date that CASA first became fully aware of the structure. There must have been some documentation submitted, a meeting with a CASA employee, an approval granted, a base approved, an audit, a report, a Part 141/142 approval, or something that triggered CASAs awareness as to the specific nature of my operation.

You will appreciate my point. There must be a date attached to an occurrence that caused CASA to first become fully aware of the specific nature of my operation. That being the operation that CASA incorrectly declared to be unlawful and unauthorised. We have since found out that my operation was in fact both lawful and authorised by CASA.

To date, I have not received an acknowledgement or a response. Whilst I am prepared to wait for a lengthier and considered response, can I respectfully request an acknowledgement that you have at least received and viewed the email of 19th September.

My understanding is that CASA is meeting with the Ombudsman, and I would like to have a clear understanding of CASAs position prior to that meeting proceeding. In fact, I believe it is incumbent that you should clearly identify CASAs position prior to that meeting, to maintain the integrity of CASAs position.

CASA must already “know” the date that they claim they first became aware of the specific nature of my operation. You will appreciate that the meeting with the Ombudsman, could provide an opportunity for CASA to “see what they can get away with”, so by publicly identifying that date that CASA first became fully aware of the specific nature of my operation, prior to meeting with the Ombudsman, that would bring integrity to CASAs position.

I’m sure you will agree, that as the person impacted by this matter, It would seem entirely reasonable that you clearly identify to me, the same information that you are presenting to the Ombudsman’s office. That being the date that CASA claim they first became fully aware of the specific nature of my operation, and that there should be no reason that CASA would not be prepared to identify that date to me prior to that meeting.

At this stage may I request a confirmation that you have received my correspondence of 19th September 2022.

As an aside, I would like to make a request to the Ombudsman’s Office that I attend that meeting between CASA and the Ombudsman. This would bring transparency and present the opportunity to put “everything on the table”. I am confident that such an approach would expedite timelines and ensure a fair outcome.

Thank you, Glen Buckley

Correspondence previously sent to Ms Spence, and referred to here can be accessed via the following link at Posts # 2376 and 2377. Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA - Page 119 - PPRuNe Forums

And via the UP:

To the CASA ICC

14th October CASA ICC wrote to me:

Hi Glen

Given the nature of the allegations you made in your 2022 ICC complaint, I am emailing to let you know that I will be attending an upcoming meeting between CASA and the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office.

As you’re aware, no review of your most recent ICC complaint has commenced. That was on the basis set out in my email of 16 August 2022 seeking further information where I noted that if the issues you have raised are still being considered by the Ombudsman in any form then an ICC review may be inappropriate or premature at this stage.

My offer to meet with you and any support person you wish to attend stands.

Regards

Jonathan Hanton

20/10/22 My response

Dear Jonathan Hanton,

Thank you for your correspondence, and I understand that no review has yet commenced. I have written to my local MP, Ms. Carina Garland seeking her input and I await her response. Pending her response, I would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you once I have established contact with her.

Are you able to advise me the date of the meeting with the Ombudsman’s Office.

I would like to put forward a proposal that CASA permit me to attend that meeting with the Ombudsman, and I would have to write to the Ombudsman with that request subject to CASAs response.

Obviously I would be professional and respectful at that meeting. Such a meeting would provide the opportunity for a frank and honest discussion that would promptly bring clarity to the entire matter. This would only enhance outcomes and bring a prompter resolution.

Is this a request that CASA would support,

Respectfully, Glen Buckley

---

Sandy Reith

A reasonable request to attend meeting.

Glen’s request should fall under CASA Board Chair Mr. Binskin’s declaration of transparency as being a desirable characteristic of CASA’s dealings with the public.

in particular the General Aviation community are heavily invested in the whole saga because the proper function of CASA is of prime importance.

Proper function being a fervent wish and hope.

We’ve not seen proper function from CASA since its inception because the ‘independent’ model of governance is wrong.

it was far from perfect under Ministerial control but it was workable. I should know, I developed my flying school, charter and RPT services before the advent of the monopoly corporate style of governance that was introduced by Labor Minister for Transport Gareth Evans. A move made to remove himself from Ministerial responsibility, a responsibility that is a cornerstone of our democratic system. The current PM when Minister of Transport in 2009 did the same to the ATSB.

MTF...P2 

[Kharon]

Picked this up from the UP – HERE -.No comment required......

GB - "In post #2410 i had written to the CASA ICC. That correspondence being a request to attend a meeting between CASA and the Ombudsmans office."

20/10/22   Good morning Glen. Thanks for your email.

The meeting with the Ombudsman has already taken place.

The primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss what further material CASA may be able to provide to assist the Ombudsman in the investigation of your complaint to that Office.

I anticipate that as a result of the meeting, a further request for information will be made to CASA.

Regards Jonathan Hanton.

[Peetwo]

Ref: TICK..TOCK goes the captured McDonaught's clock 

Dots-n-dashes to GlenB embuggerance vs CASA blind eye to Soar Aviation?? 

Ref: BJ reply to GlenB  

"..In my own matter, and far closer to home. I operated only a few hundred meters from SOAR aviation. The truth is that industry, including other Government Departments raised safety concerns about that organization on multiple occasions, and repeatedly so over a protracted period. The Company had more accidents, incidents, than most, and even a fatality. That business went on right under CASAs nose and they knew about it. They ignored it. It wasn’t CASA that shut SOAR down. It was the students going to the Australian Skills and Qualifications Authority (ASQA), Its mind boggling.

ASQA was taking action against SOAR, while CASA was shutting me down. Its simply inexplicable at least..."

Via Oz Aviation (4 days ago):

$33M PAYOUT FOR STUDENTS AT COLLAPSED FLIGHT SCHOOL SOAR

written by Adam Thorn | October 17, 2022

Hundreds of students that enrolled with collapsed flight school Soar are set to receive a five-figure payout after agreeing to a $33 million settlement.

Soar collapsed into administration on 29 December 2020, and it came with the company indirectly facing a class action from students arguing its standards were so poor it didn’t meet the subsequent requirements to obtain a pilot licence.

The payout means many former students will now be able to enrol in new courses and qualifications after having used up their limited student loans.

The case was brought by Gordon Legal against Melbourne TAFE provider Box Hill Institute (BHI), which partnered with Soar for the course.

Of the final amount, $5.455 million in legal fees and $4.8 million in administrative costs will be deducted, and the settlement still has to be approved in a court hearing scheduled for 17 November.

The class action made a number of claims, including accusing BHI of breaching its duty of care by working with the troubled flight school.

It also stated BHI engaged in “misleading and deceptive conduct” by suggesting to potential students that it would enable them to subsequently obtain a CASA pilot licence.

In January 2020, Australian Aviation reported how those calling the flight school in the days after its collapse were were presented with a voice message bluntly informing them that the business wouldn’t be taking or responding to any messages.

It was the last chapter in a difficult history for the once-prestigious flight school.

Founded in 2012, the company grew to have campuses at Moorabbin Airport in Melbourne, Bendigo Airport in regional Victoria, and Sydney’s Bankstown Airport.

Its fleet of 50 aircraft comprised Bristell LSA, Technam P2006T, Foxbat A22LS, Vixxen A32 and Aquila A210 aircraft, as well as a CKAS 7D0F simulator.

However, things turned sour in 2019 when partners Box Hill demanded the business supply documentation about its fleet and trainers.

Soar’s registered training organisation status was then revoked after an audit by the regulatory body for vocational education before Gordon Legal launched its class action.

While the business eventually had its accreditation restored, it still faced sanctions before it finally collapsed into administration late in 2020.

Founder Neel Khokhani resigned in early 2019, though has insisted it was purely a result of personal health reasons unrelated to the company’s struggles.

More seriously, the ATSB is also investigating an incident that saw a Soar Aviation instructor and student die when one of its Aquila AT01s crashed in NSW in 2020.

More recently, in a separate incident, the ATSB in May 2021 said a Soar Aviation student pilot who crashed his Bristell aircraft and suffered serious head injuries didn’t have permission to conduct the flight solo.

However, the report revealed the trainee believed he did have authorisation, despite clearly not following the correct procedures.

 

MTF...P2 

PS: In a follow up to P9's post above, via the UP - 

Sunfish

GA is dead. No one but an idiot will invest in private sector GA given the regulatory risk to their capital that CASA poses, as demonstrated by Glen Buckley. All Spence and Binskin are doing is what is termed palliative care - the future is electric multi copters and drones don't you know.. There will be the appearance of reform but it will have no substance, well, not enough to convince investors anyway.

---

glenb

Reply to post #2410 from CASA ICC

In post #2410 I had written to the CASA ICC. That correspondence being a request to attend a meeting between CASA and the Ombudsmans office.

20/10/22 Good morning Glen

Thanks for your email.

The meeting with the Ombudsman has already taken place. The primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss what further material CASA may be able to provide to assist the Ombudsman in the investigation of your complaint to that Office. I anticipate that as a result of the meeting, a further request for information will be made to CASA.

Regards

Jonathan Hanton

And back to the ICC
21/10/22

Good morning, Mr. Hanton,

Thank you for the notification that the meeting has occurred. Am I able to be advised as to who attended that meeting from CASA apart from yourself obviously?

Cheers. Glen

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Sandy Reith

Meeting attendees

I’m sure we’d all like to know who attended the meeting, and what was the outcome of their discussions.

Public servants and their activities should be transparent, just as said by CASA Chair Mr. Binskin.

In the circumstances, and the enormity of Glen’s case concerns the whole of the General Aviation industry, it would be fitting to have a full run down of the proceedings.

This would be in the spirit of the Government’s model litigant requirements, fairness and displaying a willingness to address any wrongful treatment of Glen Buckley.

---

Ms Spence reply to my correspondence in Post#2409

Dear Mr Buckley

I apologise for the delay in responding, but as you have observed I have been travelling.

As I have consistently indicated, I am awaiting advice from the Ombudsman as they complete their review of their original investigation. Once that process has been finalised, I will be happy to meet with you and discuss their findings.

That said, there are some points that I do need to clarify.

The first is that I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the information that CASA provided to the Ombudsman.

The second is that I have now asked the Ombudsman’s office to address their correspondence to me rather than Dr Aleck. This is not because I have concerns about him or the role that he has played, but because I think it is appropriate in light of the issues that you are raising about Dr Aleck’s role.

In terms of your questions about the meeting between CASA and the Ombudsman, as Mr Hanton has already advised the primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss what further material CASA may be able to provide to assist the Ombudsman in its investigation.

Your sincerely

Pip

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 28/10/22

Via the UP:

Attendees at meeting

In Post #2406 I was notified of a meeting between CASA and the Ombudsmans office.
Post #2413, I was notified that the meeting had occurred.
Post #2414 I wrote to the ICC asking who the atendees were.

I have today received this response. My expectation was that someone more senior to Mr Aleck would have attended.

---

28/10/22

Good morning Glen

CASA’s participants at the meeting were myself and Dr Aleck. Dr Aleck attended given his greater familiarity with what material existed in relation to the exchanges between CASA and APTA in early 2019 in relation how APTA’s contracts with its affiliates could demonstrate operational control.

Thanks

Jonathan

And in reply:

Lead Balloon

I find the content of the ICC’s response to be disturbing (but sadly unsurprising) Glen. The essence of your complaint in relation to CASA’s interactions with the Ombudsman is that CASA was bullshitting when it told the Ombudsman that CASA didn’t become fully aware of the specific nature of APTA’s operations until 2018.

CASA knew that applications submitted by APTA prior to 2018 for variations to its AOC to cover flying training operations would involve, for example, instructors who weren’t APTA’s employees. CASA also knew that the contractual arrangements put in place between APTA and anyone else did not contain provisions to the effect demanded by CASA in March 2019. CASA nonetheless approved those variations. Doesn’t make any difference what Dr A knew about any of that.

I suppose ‘CASA’ could try to pretend that it ‘just assumed’ that the operations covered by the approved variations would involve only personnel employed by APTA, utilising only premises and aircraft owned by APTA. I suppose ‘CASA’ could also try to pretend that it ‘just assumed’ that to the extent that the operations covered by the approved variations would utilise personnel not employed by APTA and premises and aircraft not owned by APTA, the arrangements would be covered by detailed contract provisions ensuring effective operational control. And I suppose ‘CASA’ could also try to pretend that ‘CASA’ woke up in October 2018 and slapped a palm on its forehead when the truth finally dawned on it. But those would be bald-faced lies.

My experience with the CASA ICC and Ombudsman on matters CASA is that they are not good at dealing with circumstances in which CASA is caught with its pants down, having behaved unlawfully and tried unsuccessfully to bullshit its way out of it. That’s a sad manifestation of the steadily weakening fabric of government institutions.

---

Squawk7700

Agreed, that final sentence is very specific and specifically answers a question that you didn’t ask and as such, makes it clear as to where they are headed.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 22/11/2022

Via the AP email chains:

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22/11/22
 
To: The Honourable Ms Carina Garland, MP for the Electorate of Chisholm,

Firstly, on behalf of my family, who have been significantly impacted by this matter, I just wanted to express my appreciation to you for facilitating a meeting in your Electorate Office on Wednesday 16/11/22.

I had tried throughout the tenure of the previous local MP, Ms Gladys Liu, to obtain a meeting. During her entire term she steadfastly refused to meet with me or offer me any assistance at all. Your change of approach was much appreciated.

The fact that you were prepared to meet with me was an important gesture and gives me confidence that the Electorate has a far more effective advocate and representative than we have had with the previous incumbent,  Ms Gladys Liu. Thankyou.

At our meeting I had the opportunity to provide you with a brief overview of what is a complicated and technical matter. I advised you that I would provide you with two magazine articles from Australian Flying Magazine. I have titled them “APTA before CASA action” and “APTA after CASA action”. They provide an excellent overview of APTA. Whilst they do not cover the matter in its entirety, they do provide the best initial overview.

I don’t expect you to read through it in its entirety, but I also draw your attention to a forum on my matter that has attracted over 1,000,000 views and thousands of comments, on an aviation forum. A sampling of the comments will  provide the “vibe” of industry’s view on this matter. For your reference, I post on there as “Glenb”. If one assumes that “where there is smoke, there is fire”, the forum suggests that this is a significant matter. The forum can be accessed via here: Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA - PPRuNe Forums

I raised my concerns with you regarding the potential misconduct of Mr Aleck, CASAs Executive Manager of Legal, International and Regulatory Affairs I will address that in more detail at a later stage via a formal submission that I intend to make, but I did suggest that you could contact Senator Sterle to ascertain his own experience with Mr Aleck in his dealings with Mr Aleck in the Senate. Whilst I have no insight into Senator Sterles opinion of Mr Aleck, Senator Sterle would be well placed to provide you with his  thoughts, as he has had experience dealing with him. The reason that Mr Aleck is so relevant to this matter is because he was the sole decision maker in my matter. It was his decision that I was operating unlawfully, and it was he that closed my business.

I advised you that CASAs ICC has advised that he would be comfortable with you attending a meeting between he and I on this matter. I appreciate that you are extremely busy, so Mr Hanton the CASA ICC has offered to facilitate that meeting either in Canberra or in Melbourne as best suits you.

With that in mind, could I respectfully request that your office establish contact with him via his email Jonathan.Hanton@casa.gov.au or alternatively via the CASA switchboard on 131757.

I can make myself available at any location on any day. To avoid the “ping pong”, please feel free to arrange the details with Mr Hanton, advise me of the date and location, and I will make it happen from my end.

I outlined to you the impact of Mr Alecks decision making and how I had lost my home, my two businesses, and my life savings, and that this entire matter has taken a significant toll on my mental, and physical health. Our families situation is that we have negligible superannuation, as our family business was intended to provide for our retirement, and that business was closed down by CASA. We have total life savings remaining of $6000 and should my wife or I stop working for more than six weeks, we would be facing homelessness. I also raised my concerns with you about the impact this has had on my poor wife, who has had five, possibly six days, free of work in the last 1500 days that this matter has dragged on so unnecessarily since October 2018. My wife is extremely anxious about our future housing situation, as I am. It is inevitable that at some stage in our future, one of us will be unable to work for a period of at least six weeks. The prospect of needing housing assistance at some stage is inevitable.
I was very appreciative of your offer of assistance in seeking options to assist us with housing, and that is something that I most definitely will need to approach you on, early in the New Year.

I did also raise my intention of seeking an “Act of Grace” payment to rectify the totally unnecessary harm caused to so many. Act of Grace Payments | Department of Finance

I do intend to pursue an Act of Grace Payment and will contact you regarding that at the appropriate time.

I have since drafted a letter to Ms Pip Spence the CEO of CASA that puts forward some of the key issues that I feel need to be addressed, and that is included below. I have made multiple requests to have these specific queries addressed at CEO and Board Level within CASA. The steadfast refusal to respond to these very reasonable requests, suggests to me that there is an attempt at the very highest levels within CASA to cover up this matter, and that has been very much my personal experience. 
If Ms Spence is prepared to be truthful on these matters, the responses will be revealing. There is no valid reason that CASA should not provide me with responses to these very fair and reasonable requests.

With no prior warning I had my business of more than a decade closed down. I am fully entitled to truthful responses.
I will be extremely appreciative of any assistance that you can offer to have these queries addressed in a clear and concise manner.

I have copied you in on the correspondence to Ms Spence the CASA CEO, as well as including the Ministers Office, and the CASA Board to ensure there is a widespread awareness of my matter.

I have made multiple requests over time to meet with the CASA CEO, Ms Spence, although she refuses to meet with me.
Any assistance you can offer in obtaining clear and concise responses to my queries that follow, would be appreciated. Most of them are matters that I covered briefly in our meeting yesterday.

Once again, on behalf of my family, we thank you in anticipation of your ongoing assistance and support. My letter to Ms Spence the CEO of CASA follows.

Respectfully, Glen Buckley.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
22/11/22
 
Dear Ms Spence, CEO of CASA

I refer you to a recent post on the long running forum on this matter, and refer you specifically to two posts which can be accessed via the following link, and specifically post #2440 and post   #2442  Glen Buckley and Australian small business -V- CASA - Page 122 - PPRuNe Forums

These posts raised a valid point, and that is, that CASA has made a rather simple matter, incredibly complex, and  far more complex than it needs to be.

The purpose of this correspondence is to bring some clarity and simplicity back to the entire matter as to the reason CASA closed my business.

Consider the following statement:

If Glen Buckley had utilised his own “employees” at each of the respective APTA bases, CASA would never have declared his business unlawful and closed it down.”

As simple as that sounds, that is the root cause of the entire issue. It was a determination by Mr Aleck that because I utilised personnel that were not my employees, I was operating unlawfully, and the business was closed down.

Consider the email on 20/06/2019, eight months after CASA put trading restrictions in place on the business, CASA was still maintaining the position that all personnel operating under my CASA issued authorisation had to be employees of the me as the Authorization Holder.

In the correspondence on 20/06/19 eight months after the trading restrictions were put in place, Mr Martin from CASA wrote to me and again reiterated that all personnel engaged by me and operating under the AOC, also had to paid directly by me, as their Employer. He wrote to me and stated:“For the avoidance of doubt, this would allow flight training to be conducted by APTA employees only-not employees of affiliates.”

That was the entire single issue. If all personnel were also my employees absolutely none of this harm would have been caused.
Mr Aleck determined that by me utilising personnel at my bases that were not directly employed by me, I was allegedly in breach of the following two legislative requirements and an Advisory

1. CASR 141.050
   
2. Civil Aviation Act s29
   
3. The Aviation Ruling.
   

My understanding, and how it was always explained to me by CASA was that my business was closed down because I was in breach of those regulations.

I robustly maintain that.

• I was not in breach of CASR 141.050.
  
• I was not in breach of Civil Aviation Act s29
  
• I was not in breach of the Aviation Ruling. (Since repealed by CASA, once the Ombudsman determined it was not valid)
  

Of concern to me is that CASA has failed to provide one single piece of supporting evidence to substantiate those allegations.
Over time CASA has diverted from that original narrative of “lawfulness or not’, to one of, “quality or not”. This alternating narrative has been able to be developed from within CASA because of the very clear breaches of Administrative Law, Procedural Fairness, and Natural justice.

CASA has clearly defined procedures in its Enforcement Manual that should have been followed by Mr Aleck when CASA “cancel, vary or suspend an AOC”. These procedures were never followed by him, denying me my rights under Administrative Law and Procedural fairness. The procedures that CASA was compelled to follow are outlined in CASAs Enforcement Manual, particularly Chapter 6, which can be accessed here. CASA Enforcement Manual.pdf

At no stage since CASA initiated the trading restrictions in October 2018 through until Mr Aleck stood by his original opinion and closed the business in mid-2019 was I ever provided anything that gives me a right of review or appeal or identifies to me what it is that I did “wrong”.

My best understanding is that I utilised personnel that were not directly employed by me, and that is the reason I was closed down. There was never any safety allegation, or allegation that I had breached any of my procedures in my CASA approved Operations Manual/Exposition. It was an allegation of two regulatory breaches.

Had all personnel operating under my approval, also been my employees, I would never have heard from CASA.

Consider the first alleged breach of CASR 141.050 which states that “a person commits an offence if the person conducts flight training and they don’t hold the certificate or approval to conduct the training’

If this was used as the basis to close my business, surely CASA must be able to nominate who that “person” is. Who is the person that conducted flight training without the approval. Surely there must be a date, a flight, the name of a pilot/s, and aircraft.

 It is absurd that CASA can allege that I breached CASR 141.050 and be totally unable to name the person/s involved and provide not one single piece of supporting evidence.

CASA took a safe and compliant business and shut it down with the Owner of that business, being me, having no appeal or review process available to me. I had no way to have the trading restrictions lifted. It seems totally unreasonable that a safe and compliant business of ten years is shut down, and those procedures that CASA is compelled to follow when they close down a business are completely bypassed.

Because of this failure to provide the initial Show Cause Notice (SCN) or the final “Decision”, not only did I have no appeal process available to me, but I also still to this day don’t understand the reasoning behind CASAs decision to close my business, and by not providing me that notification it has given Mr Aleck the opportunity to run an alternating narrative and mislead the Ombudsman Office and others as to the reason that CASA closed my business.

Therefore, can I formally request that CASA, both provide me with the SCN and the “decision”, that should have been provided to me at the time of initiating the action (SCN) and when the decision was finally made to force all customers to leave.

I want to know why CASA closed my business down. Was it a breach of the regulations or was it a quality control issue?

I think this is critical, and particularly so in light of some recent developments at Moorabbin Airport.

It appears that CASA has facilitated and approved a business utilising the exact same structure that I did. As you know I have asserted to the Ombudsman that CASA always permitted this exact structure that I adopted, and that in fact it was widespread industry practice. Mr Alecks blatantly false and misleading assertion was that CASA had not and did not ever permit the structure that I adopted.

I felt it was ludicrous that Mr Aleck would peddle such a blatant lie, nevertheless he did, and he did it convincingly.

You will appreciate how interested I was  to receive a telephone call from a well-intentioned CASA employee, that despite CASA closing my business down, CASA had approved another Operator to do exactly what I had been doing. If this information from the CASA employee is correct, and I have no reason to doubt it, I believe it will raise concerns as to the conduct of Mr Aleck and his decision making. As you are aware, I believe I was targeted by Mr Aleck.

In fact, if CASA has actively facilitated another Operator to do exactly what I was doing, yet closed me down, that would surely indicate some type of targeted malice, and most certainly requires an explanation from CASA, and as the person affected, I feel I am fully entitled to one. It also is an indicator as to the falsehoods propagated from within CASA, as Mr Aleck maintains that this structure was never adopted in the industry and was never permitted by CASA.

If what Mr Aleck says is true, then this would be the first time in Australia that this structure has been formally approved by CASA, and that will facilitate a comparative analysis as to why this is now permitted but my business was shut down.

The current serving CASA Employee has advised me that at Moorabbin Airport as of today there are two completely separate flying schools with different owners, they are competitors in fact. To distinguish those flying schools, I will call them Flying School “Alpha” and flying school “Foxtrot.”

• Flying School “Foxtrot” has run into operational difficulty, and no longer has a CASA mandated Head of Operations (HOO) being one of the required Key Personnel. The exact reason that Ballarat Aero Club and Latrobe Valley aero Club wanted to join APTA.
  
• Flying School “Foxtrot” is not permitted by legislation to continue operations without those CASA required Key Personnel, and was therefore compelled to cease operations without those required Key Personnel.
  
• CASA promptly facilitated for Flying school “Foxtrot” to continue operations under another flying schools Authorisation/AOC being Flying School “Alphas” Authorisation/AOC. This entire process was finalised in a matter of days, whilst I could not achieve this after 8 months.
  
• This is the exact same business model that I adopted, noting that mine was purpose built for this situation.
  
• CASA closed my business down because it was “unlawful”, and the structure I adopted “had never been done before”, when the truth is it is widespread CASA sanctioned and approved practice, always was and obviously continues to be.
  
• Flying school “Alphas” Authorisation is being used by Flying School “Foxtrot”, with CASAs full and formal approval.
  
• Flying School “Foxtrot” continues using its own building, its own aircraft, its own simulator, and perhaps most significantly Flying School “Foxtrot” is using its own employees, all under Flying school “Alphas” approval
  
• This is the exact same structure that I adopted.
  

You will understand my concern. If this CASA employees information is correct, it raises so many questions.

Why was my business shut own with no prior notice, yet CASA formally approves and offers assistance for another Operator to do exactly the same thing?

Why couldn’t I resolve the matter of content of commercial agreements for 8 months, yet another Operator could resolve the contracts issue in a matter of a couple of days?

As the CASA employee suggested to me, he/she does not believe that CASA even stipulated any contracts, and to the best of his/her knowledge CASA does not hold a copy of the commercial agreement, because its not a requirement stipulated on this Operator, although it was on me. If CASA does hold a copy of a contract, why were the requirements on this Operator so much less onerous than my requirements? Surely all Operators would be required to operate to the same requirements of Mr Aleck.

What is it that is different between the two operations that makes this arrangement compliant with the regulations but mine was in breach of the regulations? Surely if Mr Aleck was acting in good faith, he could clearly identify why that is.

I advised the Ombudsman that CASA had always, and on every occasion throughout my 25 years in the industry, permitted the structure that I had adopted.

Mr Aleck asserted to the Ombudsman that CASA never permitted it, that raises the question as to who is being truthful, Mr Aleck or I?

This most recent approval by CASA of the two operators coming together with full CASA support and approval clearly indicates the level of deceit propagated by Members of CASAs most senior Executive.

If Mr Aleck was being truthful then CASA should be able to clearly state that this most recent approval at Moorabbin Airport of Flying School  Alpha and Foxtrot operating together as two entities under the one Authorisation/AOC must be the first time in Australia that CASA has approved this arrangement,  Recall that CASA stated that the structure that I had adopted was not permitted, yet here it is again clearly permitted for someone other than Glen Buckley.

I could go on listing dozens of questions, but it should not be necessary.

If the information provided to me is correct, then to be frank that exposes this entire matter, and provides irrefutable evidence that CASA has provided false and misleading information to the Ombudsman investigation as you are aware.

Please note that I have included Ms Carina Garland my local MP, and I have also included the Ministers Office.

On 16/11/22 I had the opportunity to meet with Ms Garland, and Ms Garland explained to me that she has already initiated requests for information both from CASA and the Ministers office, of which I am very appreciative. Ms Garlands office has been included in this correspondence, and this correspondence will provide Ms. Garland with clear guidance on what I am seeking...

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Ref: https://auntypru.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/22.pdf + https://auntypru.com/wp-content/uploads/...ACTION.pdf + https://auntypru.com/wp-content/uploads/...ACTION.pdf


MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 2/12/22  

Via the AP email chains...

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---

Dear Ms Pip Spence, 

I have contacted the Commonwealth Ombudsman's Office and fully withdrawn my Complaint to that Office.

I am fully satisfied that Mr Jonathan Aleck the CASA Executive Manager of Legal International and Regulatory Services has provided clearly  false and misleading information to the Commonwealth Ombudsman's investigation. 

There is a substantial body of evidence already presented to you that would indicate that my allegation may have some merit. You are readily able to avail yourself of the truth.You choose not to. 

Over the last four years CASA has used the ongoing Ombudsman's investigation as a reason not to respond to my questions. 

There is now no Ombudsman's investigation, so that cannot be used as an excuse, as it should not have been anyway.

I am calling on you in your role as the CEO of CASA to act in accordance with obligations placed on you by both CASAs Regulatory Philosophy and the obligations placed on CASA when they choose to close down a business as they did with mine, and as outlined in CASA s own Enforcement Manual.

As you are aware, I walked into my business of a decade at 8am on 23rd October 2018, having no idea that by the end of the day I would receive notification from CASA that the structure I had adopted for the last decade was now declared unlawful, and my business had only 7 days to continue operating. CASA placed a restriction on the business that prevented it taking on customers. This continued for 8 months until CASA stood by its original decision and forced all remaining customers to leave the business.

CASA did this entire process from that initial notification in October 2018 when the trading restrictions were put in place, through  to closing my business in mid 2019,  with me having no appeal process being provided to me at all. 

How can that possibly be that the owner of a business in Australia has his business closed down, his life decimated, and no reason is provided in writing, there is no appeal process open to him, CASA does this without making a "decision" that can be appealed. Its not reasonable.

The truth is that CASA erred, and despite your best efforts, that cannot be covered up. CASA bypassed its own procedures. 

I have never been provided with any correspondence that advises me what I did wrong.

In October 2018, I should have been provided a Show Cause Notice (SCN) that clearly outlined what the allegations were. That was never provided. 

In mid 2019, CASA stood by its original determination, and forced all remaining customers to leave. I should have been provided with a copy of a "Decision" in writing rather than the process being verbal and unwritten.

As the family who have had their lives decimated by the sudden closure of their business, my request for a very clear written "decision" outlining very clearly what I did wrong, and why you closed my business down. 

I will be frank. I believe you will continue to deflect, and not provide a response to my very fair and reasonable request, and that is why I have sought the assistance of my Local MP, Ms.Carina Garland. I need this not only for my own mental health, but I have taxation office issues that are related to the closure of my businesses, and I am required to provide an explanation. Because of this matter, I also have an upcoming case in the Supreme Court and I need to know why my business closed down, in order to defend myself. 

It's also important reputationally for me. I want to know what I did wrong, so I can explain it to people. 

Seriously Ms. Spence there is no reason that you would not provide me that document, I am fully entitled to it under procedural fairness. I find your deflection to the Ombudsman concerning. I am not interested in what the Ombudsman thinks at this stage. It was not the Ombudsman that closed my business, It was CASA. CASA must have had a reason. CASA should be able to explain that on its own, and is totally independent of the now terminated investigation.

I have attached my previous correspondence to you and Ms Garland below for quick reference. I also note that the initial email sent on 22/11/22 may not have been ideally formatted. A reformatted version of identical contents is below. 

Respectfully, Glen Buckley

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MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 9/12/22

Via the AP email chains:

09/12/22

To the Minister responsible for CASA, the Honourable Ms. Catherine King MP;

Please accept my formal allegation against two CASA employees. The allegation is that:

Mr Jonathan Aleck, CASA Executive Manager of Legal, International and Regulatory Affairs has provided false and misleading information to a Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office investigation on five occasions.

Ms Pip Spence CEO of CASA has facilitated the provision of false and misleading information to a Commonwealth Office investigation on each of those five occasions.

The false and misleading information has been provided on five different matters, and each is substantive in nature.

In this correspondence I will attend to the first of the five pieces of disinformation only.

Over coming months, I will send you the additional allegations, of which there are four more to follow.

I apologize that there will be five pieces of correspondence, each raising a separate allegation. I have adopted this approach for two reasons.

The first being that the impact of this matter has had a substantial impact on my health. A lengthier single piece of correspondence covering all five allegations is not something that I am able to attend to at the moment.

Secondly, it should not be necessary. If you are able to promptly clarify this single occasion alone, I feel you will be compelled to act, and most especially because of the seniority of their respective positions, and the responsibility of the Department that they lead, i.e. the Nations aviation safety regulator, CASA.

In order to promptly attend to this matter, I understand that the first stage will require you to establish contact with the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office and clarify the “understanding” of the Ombudsman’s Office.

In order to maximize the effectiveness of your approach to that Office, can I propose that the following question be put to that office?

Question to Ombudsman’s Office,

Has either Ms. Pip Spence as the CEO of CASA with expert knowledge on this matter, or Mr. Jonathan Aleck, CASA Executive Manager of Legal, International and Regulatory Affairs, acting as the sole representative of CASA in communications with the Ombudsman as part of that investigation led the Ombudsman’s investigation to be of the view that the structure Glen Buckley had adopted in his business was not permitted and had never been permitted by previously by CASA. It was something unique and something that he was doing for the first time. He was doing something that was not standard industry practice.

Glen Buckley asserts that CASA had always and on every occasion throughout his 25 years in the industry approved the identical structure that he adopted, and I emphasize identical. If there are any differences CASA should be promptly able to advise those differences. Glen Buckley asserts that CASA consistently throughout the last 25 years approved multiple operators to do exactly what he was doing. It was completely standard industry practice throughout the industry with full and formal CASA approval on every occasion. In fact, over recent weeks CASA has just approved two operators at Moorabbin airport to adopt the identical structure that they closed my business for.

I am confident that the Ombudsman’s office will advise you that they have formed the opinion that the structure I had adopted was never permitted by CASA, previously.

The truth is that it was always permitted by CASA. Mr Aleck has led the Ombudsman to be of the view that what I was doing was not standard industry practice, when in fact it very clearly was and he is fully aware of that.

I have 25 years’ experience in the flight training industry as Grade One Multi engine IFR instructor (the most senior), I have ten years’ experience as a CASA approved Chief Flying Instructor (CFI), and three years’ experience as a CASA approved Head of Operations (HOO), and CASA approved CEO. I am a Subject Matter Expert on the flight training industry, and what I am telling you is the truth.

I am fully satisfied that both Mr Aleck and Ms Spence are providing false and misleading information to the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s investigation for the purposes of perverting the findings of that investigation.

I have previously provided the CASA Board with the details of two individuals who will promptly be able to advise you of the truth. One being a current serving CASA employee who has offered simply to “tell the truth”. The second being an ex CASA employee with impeccable credentials as a pilot in the RAAF, Airlines and CASA, who would appreciate the opportunity to tell the truth. In fact, I suggest that any serving CASA employee in the position of Flight Operations Inspector (FOI) of which there are dozens within CASA will quickly be able to advise you of the truth provided appropriate protections are in place for those individuals.

My considerations are to approach the Federal Police or the Attorney General's Office, although I am seeking specific guidance from your Office before proceeding.

The Ombudsman’s Office is not the appropriate forum in my opinion, I feel that these substantive allegations need to be assessed at the highest level, and I request consideration that this matter be addressed to the new anti-corruption body.

Thank you for your consideration of my matter, and whilst I don’t require a lengthy response at this stage could I request an acknowledgement from both the Ministers Office, and the Board Secretariat for CASA that this correspondence has reached the intended recipients.

I have included other recipients in this correspondence including the Honorable Ms. Carina Garland as my local MP, and who is assisting me with this matter.
I fully understand that I could be subject to prosecution if I was found to be raising these claims in a vindictive or vexatious manner.

Respectfully,

Glen Buckley

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 14/12/22

Via the UP:

glenb

Letter to my MP Ms. Garland


I wasnt going to publish this, as it is a bit embarrassing and back slapping, nevertheless here it is. I truly believe that CASA has portrayed me as a nutcase (which most certainly was not the case prior to October 2018, this was intended to counteract that. Sadly, i have little confidence in the Ombudsman investigation and intend to depend on my local MP for assistance going forward.

11/12/22

Dear Ms Garland,


I apologise that I am bombarding you with emails. Please note there are other recipients including the CASA Board.

As you are aware CASA closed my two businesses down, and I then obtained employment in the industry until CASA wrote to my Employer, and directed that my continuing employment was no longer tenable based on comments that I was making publicly. I was terminated and left the industry.

After a nervous breakdown and a period of unemployment, I obtained employment as a Youth Justice Worker in a custodial facility with Victoria's most challenged males in the 18 to 21 age group. It's a dangerous but challenging role. It involves many of the same skills I drew on in my aviation career. Sound decision making, good intent, standards, ethics, mentoring, dependability, risk assessments, etc.

The purpose of this correspondence is to inform you that each year a Directors Award is presented to the Youth Justice Worker of the Year. I am proud to be the recipient of this years award, and i quote.

• Glen Buckley (YJW1)
  

Glen has been recognised for his commitment to making a difference in the lives of young people. In particular, Glen’s efforts have been recognised on multiple occasions from young people providing positive feedback through the Independent Visitor Program to which the Commission for Children and Young People appreciate Glen’s efforts. Additionally, the Youth Parole Board have also held Glen in high regard with his support to those young people transitioning back to the community. Glen embodies the values of Youth Justice and his can-do attitude makes him an exceptional role model to others around him.


The purpose of providing that information is as a character reference for myself.

As the person who had his well being decimated by Mr Jonathan Aleck, please be assured there is a very significant story to be told here. I am making a further appeal to you Ms Garland as my local MP. I am a 57 year resident of the electorate, my family desperately needs your assistance. I appreciate that you have limited resources and a high workload, but I thank you for your support to date, and thank you in anticipation of that continuing support.

Please be assured that there is a story to be told here, and if told it will demonstably improve aviation safety in this Country and the industry is watching closely.

Respectfully, Glen Buckley

---

PiperCameron

Originally Posted by glenb View Post

I wasnt going to publish this, as it is a bit embarrassing and back slapping, nevertheless here it is. I truly believe that CASA has portrayed me as a nutcase (which most certainly was not the case prior to October 2018, this was intended to counteract that. Sadly, i have little confidence in the Ombudsman investigation and intend to depend on my local MP for assistance going forward.

Glen, if it's true then it's not back-slapping and it need not be embarrassing either. One has to find work where one can - and to excel at that is even more praiseworthy.

It sux to fall foul of the monster and I do hope your local member can both see that and help out in some way.

---

glenb

Thanks Sandy

Sandy has been a staunch supporter and does a lot behind the scenes to push my matter. He copied me in on this correspondence to my local MP, Ms. Garland. I hope you dont mind me posting it Sandy,

"..Dear Ms. Garland,

I support Glen Buckley in his pursuit of justice. This case should have never developed and those of us that are familiar with the General Aviation (GA) industry believe that Government must make amends to Mr. Buckley and his family.

My career has been in GA and I’m not unfamiliar with political life being the brother of the late Peter Reith.

I’m sure you understand that being Glen’s representative it’s most important that you assess his case in detail. I, and many others, would be happy to answer any questions you may by way of information of how the system has been working.

Kind regards,

Sandy Reith.."

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 28/12/22

Via the UP:

A draft letter to Minster. Sending 9AM 29/12/22

To the Minister responsible for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the Honourable Ms. Catherine King MP,

My name is Glen Buckley, you will have some awareness of my matter.

On the 9th of December 2022, I sent you the first of a set of five, allegations of misconduct against two senior Executives of CASA.

· Ms. Pip Spence, CEO of CASA and,

· Mr. Jonathan Aleck, CASA Executive Manager of Legal, International and Regulatory Affairs.

Specifically, those allegations were related to the deliberate and considered provision of grossly false and misleading information to a Commonwealth Ombudsman’s investigation, with the intention to pervert the findings of that investigation.

Over coming days, I hope to complete and submit the second of those five allegations, and I will attend to the remainder as early as practical in the New Year.

Please note that this correspondence is not one of those five allegations, however it is highly relevant to the entire matter, and is one of the core matters.

I am fully satisfied that both Ms Spence and Mr Aleck are fully aware that CASA have acted unlawfully when CASA closed my business, and they have each been aware of that for a significant period of time.

I am fully satisfied that with that awareness Ms. Spence is attempting to “cover up” this matter by facilitating disinformation to that investigation, frustrating processes, choosing not to access the truth when it is readily available to her in her role, and in situations where she knows the truth, she chooses not to share that information when she should.

I believe this correspondence, the supporting evidence, the substantive nature of the allegations, and the ease with which truthfulness can be ascertained, must call into question the integrity of both Ms. Spence and Mr Aleck, and their suitability to continue in their respective roles, and most especially considering the seniority of their positions and the function of the Department that they lead.

Misconduct at such senior levels within CASA has the potential to impact on the safety of aviation, I feel you will be compelled to take action on this matter.

Before I get to the point of this correspondence, I will provide some required, underpinning knowledge.

On 23rd October 2018, and despite daily contact with my CASA team who had never raised any concerns, I received a written notification from CASA that I apparently been operating my business unlawfully for over 8 years, and that it was most likely that my business was to be shut down by CASA in as little as 7 days.

CASA immediately prevented me taking on any new customers, existing customers were advised that I was operating unlawfully, and what CASA termed an “administrative freeze,” was placed on all CASA regulatory tasks including the addition of Key Personnel, addition of courses, renewal of flight simulators etc.

Those crippling trading restrictions remained in place for 8 months, until Mr. Aleck stood by his initial determination of October 23rd, 2018, and forced all remaining customers to leave because the structure was unlawful.

Throughout that entire 8-month period as the business owner, CASA adopted a method that denied me any right of review or appeal. From having an established, safe and compliant business at 9AM on October 23rd, 2018, through to the closure of the business eight months later with the associated harm caused, at no stage did I have any right of review or appeal to that determination by CASA, and Mr Aleck specifically.

Mr Aleck made his determination that my business was operating unlawfully against two pieces of legislation and what is referred to as an “Aviation Ruling.” The Aviation Ruling was repealed by CASA shortly after they used it as the basis to close my business down. The allegations were that I had breached.

· Section 27a of the Civil Aviation Act

· CASR 141.050

· The Aviation Ruling (later repealed)

There were never any allegations against safety, no allegations that I did not have operational control, no allegations against any breaches of procedures in our CASA approved manuals, no requirements to alter any of our procedures in any way.

It was a change of opinion by CASA that because I utilised personnel that were not also my employees, I was in breach of those regulations according to CASA.

As the Owner of that business, there was never any doubt in my mind that the allegations of regulatory breaches were so absurd that I had concerns about “intent”.

I knew I was not operating unlawfully, and that Mr Aleck was manipulating legislation to achieve his desired outcome and bring harm to me. Most likely because I had taken an industry lead on raising concerns about the proposed new legislation not being “fit for purpose”, and the passage of time has clearly demonstrated that it is not. I had also raised concerns of the impact of the proposed legislation on Australian owned businesses and most particularly those in regional areas. Similarly, the passage of time has demonstrated that my concerns were valid.

For that and other reasons, I am fully satisfied that Mr Aleck targeted me, and most especially as I was the only operator that he shut down. CASA permitted the identical structure with other operators and continues to do so today. CASA led the Ombudsman to believe that I was doing something unique when the truth is that it was not unique, and CASA had always formally approved the identical structure, not only for me but for many operators.

To the point of this correspondence.

Ms Spence and Mr Aleck are both fully aware that CASA had no valid basis in law to close my business.

Since receipt of that notification of October 23rd, 2018, through until this day, I robustly maintain that there was no breach of those regulations, and I was not operating unlawfully. In fact, drawing on 25 years’ experience in the flight training industry it was ludicrous, and obviously not well intentioned that a CASA employee would use the legislation in this way.

There can be no doubt that both Ms. Spence and Mr Aleck are fully aware, and have been for some time, that the truth is that there were never any breaches of either of the two pieces of legislation or the Aviation Ruling, and CASA had no valid reason to close my business, and that CASA has acted unlawfully.

Mr Aleck was clearly abusing the significant power that he wields, including the power to close businesses based on his “opinion:”

To support my assertion that those two CASA Executives are fully aware, and have been for some time, that CASA acted unlawfully when it closed my business, consider the following timeline.

October 23rd, 2018, CASA advise me that I am supposedly operating unlawfully and have been for many years, CASA immediately placed crippling trading restrictions on the business. No legal advice has been sought by CASA at this stage. It is the “opinion” of Mr. Aleck only.

April 30th, 2019, CASA wrote to me advising that after 6 months with the trading restrictions in place, Mr Aleck has only now, finally received his first external and independent legal advice, when CASA wrote to me and stated.

“CASA has now received the external legal advice and that it has confirmed, inter alia, that Part 141 certificate holder is not precluded from entering into contractual arrangements with other parties to deliver flight training activities.”

There can be no doubt that by April 30th 2019 with the trading restrictions in place for 6 months, Mr Alecks application of opinion has been found to have no valid legal basis, and he is now fully aware of that, and the reasonable expectation is that with that knowledge he was again presented with the opportunity to act with good intent, and yet again he chose not to.

This is significant because by the end of April 2019, with the benefit of that legal advice Mr Aleck was presented with a further opportunity to either

· Admit error, and work collaboratively to avoid any further harm being caused, or

· Relentlessly continue to pursue his agenda to cause harm to me and my business.

Mr. Aleck chose the latter.

June 30th, 2019, Mr Aleck advises that he is standing by his initial determination, despite being in receipt of the independent legal advice he received two months earlier, the business is to be “dismantled”, and he deems the structure unlawful. CASA then contact the remaining customers and force them to find alternative arrangements for their own continued operations, including my own flying school of 12 years, Melbourne Flight Training (MFT).

The business structure adopted for the last 8 years was deemed unlawful because I utilised personnel that were not always my direct employees. i.e., they were employees of another entity.

Quite simply Mr Aleck was wrong, and he was fully aware of that before he continued with his decision to close my business. Mr Aleck closed my business two months after receipt of that independent and external legal advice. Understandably, CASA refuse to provide me a copy with that legal advice, however it would be a document that the Minister could access.

If there can be any doubt remaining that Mr Aleck was fully aware he was acting unlawfully before he made the decision to close my business in mid-2019, then there can be no doubt that he became aware he had acted unlawfully twelve months after he closed my business when Phase One of the Ombudsman’s report was released.

25th June 2020, Phase One of the Ombudsman investigation

Mr Aleck was fully aware that the decision to close my business in June 2019 was unlawful when were further validated on the 25th of June 2020, being twelve months after CASA closed my business, the Ombudsman wrote to me at the conclusion of Phase One of the investigation. In that correspondence he stated.

“As of October 2016, no Australian legislation prohibited 'franchising' of an AOC, subject only to the exclusivity of the AOC holder’s operational control, and that remained the case as of 25 March 2020.

There would be no legal or regulatory impediment to Mr Buckley or APTA selling or licencing intellectual property in the form of its AOC exposition to other FTO. And there would be no legal or regulatory impediment to CASA issuing part 142 Permissions on submission of those expositions by another FTO.”

I am fully satisfied that by June 2020, Mr Aleck had access to was fully aware that he had acted unlawfully. He knew that before he closed my business based on CASAs own legal advice, and this was reinforced to him when the Ombudsman Report was released after he had closed my business.

For complete clarity regarding this correspondence.

I robustly maintained throughout this entire matter that there were very clearly no regulatory breaches, and that the legislation was being manipulated by Mr Aleck to achieve his desired outcome. His actions and decisions were not motivated by the safety of aviation but for other reasons, that were not well intentioned. It was personal, and I was targeted by him.

Mr Aleck, the CASA Executive Manager of Legal, International and Regulatory Affairs was aware in April of 2019 when CASA finally received external and independent legal advice. that he had no valid legal basis to declare my business unlawful, and place crippling trading restrictions on it, six months earlier in October of 2018.

With that legal advice received in April of 2019, Mr Aleck pursued his agenda regardless, and closed the business down two months later in June of 2019. He had no valid legal basis to do this.

Phase One of the Ombudsman Report received by CASA in June of 2020 would have again alerted CASA to the fact that Mr Aleck had no valid legal basis to close my business, although by now the business had been shut down for twelve months.

Ms Pip Spence commenced as the CEO of CASA in May of 2021. I acknowledge that Ms. Spence was not the CEO of CASA at the time that CASA unlawfully closed my business. Ms Spence however has been in the role for 18 months and is fully aware that CASA acted unlawfully. I have made her aware in writing throughout her tenure and she has access to those documents i.e. the Ombudsman Phase one report and CASAs own legal advice.

This correspondence is not intended as an allegation against Ms Spence or Mr Aleck, as I will attend to that in the subsequent correspondence.

The purpose of this correspondence is to ensure that there is an awareness within the office of the Minister that there is existing knowledge at the most senior levels within CASA that CASA have acted unlawfully, and that was known before the decision was made.

I have approached Ms Spence requesting a well-intentioned meeting, but she steadfastly refuses to meet with me.

I truly believe that this matter could be bought to a prompt resolution if Ms Spence was to clearly articulate to the Minister, and also to me, whether

CASA maintains the same position that it did in October of 2018, i.e. that I was operating in breach of

· Section 27a of the Civil Aviation Act

· CASR 141.050

· The Aviation Ruling (later repealed)

Although the response from Ms Spence may be lengthy, as I anticipate it will be, it needs only be one word, and that would be a yes or a no. In fact, if I may respectfully put forward a suggestion. The response could ideally commence with the “yes” or a “no”, and then perhaps be followed up with the supporting information.

I anticipate Ms Spence may be reluctant to respond prior to the release of the Ombudsman’s report, but this is an entirely separate matter and gets to the core matters of ethics and integrity. CASA must surely have its own position on this matter. Has its position changed substantially or does CASA stand by Mr Alecks decision making.

If as a I allege both Ms Spence and Ms Aleck have been responsible for providing false and misleading information to the Ombudsman’s inquiry then I can understand their preference to postpone responding until after reports release.

A reluctance for CASA to reiterate its stance on the regulatory breaches alleged of October 2018, must surely raise concerns regarding ethics and integrity.

Whilst it may not be an “offence” to be aware that you have acted unlawfully to close someone’s business and cause so much harm, it certainly speaks to ethics and integrity, something that has been eroded over the last decade.

Thank you for your time, may I respectfully request an acknowledgement of receipt of this correspondence, and I shall write to you over coming months with the further four of the five allegations against Ms Spence and Mr Aleck.

Glen Buckley

Comments in reply...

Sunfish

Furthermore, the CASA defence that Dr. Aleck or another member of staff made a "simple administrative error" in this matter is not available because it is untenable when one considers the drawn out nature of the proceedings and Dr. Alecks purported reputation and experience.

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aroa

Sunny, the trouble with CAsA is they can cobble up any defence that suits at the time, and revise that later if needs be to keep their BS line up front and centre.
And who’s to question any of that, a Minister for the nod of disapproval? A politician ?
The Industry and the victim know it’s arrant tosh, but the problem remains the same. NO resolution.

MTF...P2