[Peetwo]

Dots and dashes on the road to GA industry redemption??

Dots so far...

St Commode's last 'UP YOURS' to the IOS?? 

Putting this post here because if the good Senators ever wanted a better example of the totally corrupt, self-serving, morally moribund culture that exists within the CASA executive management and Board you can't go past the following -   

Via the UP: 

 CASA CEO - Carmody - request your support via this survey

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Following is a request from CASA's CEO and Director of Aviation Safety Shane Carmody:

We're conducting a short survey of the aviation community to see how we're performing.

Your members' feedback will help us identify whether we've improved since our last survey two years ago, and where we still have work to do. It will focus our efforts on the things most important to our clients.

Please lend your support by encouraging your members to participate.

If you like, you could simply forward the following to your members.

CASA is conducting a 10-minute online survey of the aviation community to see how we're performing.

The survey is being conducted by an independent company, Faster Horses Consulting, so you can be perfectly frank in sharing your views. Your feedback will never be connected to you. Only de-identified aggregate survey results will be published (see the previous results on our website, for example).

Start the survey...

https://fasterhorses.au1.qualtrics.com/j...dium=Email

We strongly encourage you to provide your feedback on this survey, on behalf of all of our members. If you have any other questions please email feedback@casa.gov.au

Thanks for taking a moment to support your aviation community at this difficult time.

Shane Carmody

Chief Executive Officer and Director of Aviation Safety

And...

Report and recommendation to continue with delegated legislation?? -   

Via the APH website I note that the RRAT Legislative committee has effectively 'tick and flicked' the UAV/Drone levy amendment bill: Report
   

2.43 The committee recommends the Senate pass the bills.

Senator Susan McDonald
Chair

Before we move on I note perhaps a significant point in time (even though it comes from the Greens) - 

Additional Comments - Australian Greens

Additional Comments - Australian Greens


The Australian Greens support a drone registration levy, to fund and support appropriate regulation of a rapidly expanding and changing sector. However the reliance of delegated legislation for this framework reflects a concerning pattern. As the main Committee report notes, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee has highlighted questions around “the appropriateness of leaving virtually all of the details of the operation of the proposed unmanned aircraft levy scheme to delegated legislation.”

The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation is currently undertaking an inquiry into the Exemption of delegated legislation from parliamentary oversight. In a submission to that inquiry, the Centre for Public Integrity stated that: 

Accountability measures that ensure policy decisions made via delegated legislation are in the public interest and follow proper process are limited. These decisions are not given detailed deliberation in Parliament and are not transparent to public scrutiny.

… the increasing use of delegated legislation puts individual power in the hands of Ministers who do not face independent accountability outside of Parliamentary scrutiny.

We are concerned that the increasing exemption of delegated legislation from disallowance threatens democratic decision making and the constitutional role of Parliament.1

We welcome the Government’s decision to use disallowable instruments for this scheme, rather than exempting them from disallowance. However the Australian Greens share the concerns of the Centre for Public Integrity at the expanding use of delegated legislation. 

Senator Janet Rice
Participating Member

"The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation is currently undertaking an inquiry into the Exemption of delegated legislation from parliamentary oversight.."

Hmmm...now that is interesting    - over to the 'Scrutiny of delegated legislation thread me thinks??

Now the dashes...

Via the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation committee's webpage: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Bus...moversight

Terms of reference

The committee has resolved, under standing order 23(12), to inquire into and report on the exemption of delegated legislation from parliamentary oversight, with particular regard to:

a. the appropriateness and adequacy of the existing framework for exempting delegated legislation from parliamentary oversight, including:
i. the amount and nature of delegated legislation currently exempt from parliamentary oversight;
ii. the grounds upon which delegated legislation is currently made exempt from parliamentary oversight;
iii. the manner in which delegated legislation is currently made exempt from parliamentary oversight; and
iv. the appropriateness of exempting delegated legislation made in times of emergency, including in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, from parliamentary oversight; and

b. whether the existing framework for exempting delegated legislation from parliamentary oversight should be amended, and, if so, how, including:
i. the grounds upon which it is appropriate to exempt delegated legislation from parliamentary oversight; and
ii. the options available to ensure appropriate and adequate parliamentary oversight of delegated legislation in times of emergency.

Now lets flick through to page 2 of the 'submissions':

29 Australian Airline Pilots' Association (AusALPA) (PDF 319 KB) 
CASA response - 9 October 2020 (PDF 179 KB) 

30 Australian Federation of Air Pilots (PDF 332 KB) 
Response from CASA - 6 October 2020 (PDF 65 KB) 

Focusing on the AFAP submission 30, the following is an extract: 

Necessary Oversight Through Freedom of Information - Genuine Community Based Oversight

7. The AFAP believes that the appropriateness and adequacy of the existing framework for
exempting delegated legislation is insufficient without a viable FOI mechanism to support the
community and industry based experts to hold relevant Government agencies to account. This is
especially so when and where parliamentary oversight is insufficient to do so alone, such as in the
case of delegated legislation and decision outcomes based upon delegated legislation.
8. In certain highly technical fields, such as aviation, it isn’t possible or appropriate for those without
specific expertise to develop the necessary technical regulations and standards. However, it is
also equally inappropriate for there to be insufficient oversight of the work of our public servants.
The work and function of Government agencies, such as Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA),
must be accessible to an alternative supplementary oversight mechanism when delegated
legislation mechanisms are used.
9. The Civil Aviation Act (1988) (“the Act”) tasks and permits CASA to develop and promulgate
appropriate safety standards for the civil aviation sector. The Act also requires CASA to consult
with stakeholders when performing these functions. In spite of these requirements and functions,
CASA is still able to maintain a high degree of obfuscation and avoid accountability from
parliamentary oversight, aviation stakeholders and the general public. More concerning though,
is that there are examples where obfuscation is openly based on reasons of self-interest. In citing
reasons for not disclosing requested documents, CASA FOI Officers have informed the AFAP that
(in part) their decision is because:
“…disclosure of the information would reduce the public’s confidence in CASA and would also
have an adverse effect on the receipt and quality of information that CASA needs to perform its
aviation safety role.”
10. The AFAP considers this a significantly self-serving position, not in the public’s interest and
contrary to both the intent of FOI legislation and to that of CASA’s priorities, as stated in the Act.
Section 9A of the Act outlines the performance of functions of CASA and the highest priority is for
aviation safety, certainly not reputational self-interest. S9A (1) states:
“In exercising its powers and performing its functions, CASA must regard the safety of air
navigation as the most important consideration.”
11. Given that the parliament cannot perform an oversight function on all technical regulations
developed through delegated legislation mechanisms, nor the decisions based on these
regulations, the AFAP believes it absolutely essential that FOI mechanisms are sufficiently robust
to allow genuine industry sector and community-based oversight and accountability to occur. This
must occur to supplement the reduced parliamentary oversight that occurs as a symptom of the
achieving the delegated legislation advantages.
12. Strengthening of FOI provisions is a critical means to increase oversight of the appropriateness of
CASA’s functions and performance but it is not the only means. Amendment to the Act can also
provide necessary delegated legislation enhancements too.

 Embed Delegated Legislation Expectations in Legislation – Amendment to the Civil Aviation Act

13. The AFAP believes that the parliament can enhance the appropriateness of delegated legislation,
enacted by the Civil Aviation Act for the civil aviation sector, through a relatively simple
amendment to s9A of the Act. This would provide a necessary counterbalance to the negative
effects of a lack of parliamentary oversight on delegated legislation and their outcomes.
14. Section 9A of the Act sets out the performance and function priorities that CASA must regard and
consider, which necessarily includes that CASA must regard safety as the most important
consideration. In 2019, the parliament amended the Act to create a mechanism to better align
CASA’s performance and functions to the parliament’s expectations and requirements. However,
these changes only addressed risk and cost-based considerations, not systemic safety based
outcomes and expectations.
15. Whilst the AFAP considers the 2019 amendment to be a positive step to address some of the
shortfalls created by delegated legislation, we also strongly believe that it is incomplete and that
critical flaws remain. To resolve this, the AFAP proposes that s9A(3) be amended with an
additional mechanism for delivering parliamentary expectations for when CASA develops and
promulgates aviation safety standards under s9(1)©. Specifically, we propose that s9A(3) must
oblige that CASA must also:

“….take into account that civil aviation is a system of safety.”

16. Statements that CASA must consider aviation safety as its highest priority currently are without
nuanced direction and leave too much scope for interpretation without the necessary context.
Aviation is a complex and dynamic safety sensitive industry where no one party or individual can
maintain a watch over all of its interrelated parts. The safety of this system is reliant upon the
 parts of the system working with each other in a coordinated and effective manner. This is
sometimes referred to as a systems-approach to safety.
17. The Act does not specifically require CASA to perform its regulatory development and
implementation functions in a manner that considers civil aviation safety as a system. Nor does
the Act require CASA to conduct its own internal functions in a coordinated or systemic manner.
We believe that the absence of these core requirements means there is an insufficient focus or
accountability for coordinating reforms with industry to avoid undue burden and unnecessary cost
imposts, which originate from an uncoordinated regulatory reform process.
18. We strongly believe that the development and implementation of reforms should necessarily
occur in a systemic manner too.
19. It is our view that all aviation stakeholders -including the general public- would benefit from an
amendment to the Act that requires CASA to conduct their own processes and regulatory reform
functions in a manner that involves specific considerations for coordinating its functions and
reforms with regard to the aspects of the system that the reforms would interact with.


Case Study Example: Community Service Flight Regulations

A current hot topic example of a lack of systems-based consideration in regulatory development
is that of Community Service Flight (CSF) regulation.

An ATSB investigation found that the CSF sector of the industry had an unacceptably heightened
risk profile compared to how it was regulated, and that ongoing issues existed regarding a lack of
systems and support from organisations in this sector (such as Angel Flight) to their operating
pilots. I.e. the investigation found systemic, human factors, and organisational issues to address.
CASA acknowledged these findings and progressed changes to the CSF regulations (delegated
legislation). However, CASA provided apple solutions for oranges problems. That is, CASA
provided increased minimum standards for individual pilots and for aircraft maintenance, whilst
at the same time failing to address the core issues which are systemic and organisational in nature.

These remain largely unmitigated risks.

The CSF sector, and other aviation stakeholders, have remained opposed to the changes
introduced by CASA. Although, without identifying the nuanced remedy that we propose.

A change to the Act may not prevent CASA from doing such things again in the future however, it
would certainly encourage an increased focus on systemic risks that remain unmitigated and help
avoid creating relatively unnecessary change imposts on the aviation community. Such a change
to the Act, as we propose, would provide a much more useful means of accountability and
rectification when CASA does not consider regulatory reform on a systemic basis, as they have
done in this example.

Now note that the AusALPA and AFAP submissions (unlike any other submissions) received response submissions from the relevant Govt regulatory agency ie CASA?? The following is CASA (Dr A's) response correspondence to the AFAP submission -  :

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Hmm..love to see the email chain on where that response emanated from - 

MTF...P2