[Peetwo]

Friday 20th November public hearing program -  

Via GA inquiry webpage: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Bus...alAviation

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Plus recent submissions:

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39 McDermott Aviation (PDF 2990 KB) 

Extracts: 

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40 Fleet Helicopters and Commercial Helicopters (PDF 279 KB) 

Extracts: 

..We consistently identify CASA as one of our highest risks with regard to safety. We are
continually forced to invest resources, (human, physical and financial), in order to analyse,
argue against and eventually implement bad regulation that provides no benefit to either
the industry or our clients with regard to safety. The extensive time our organisation has
been required to spend analysing and unpicking the confusing regulations and developing
ways to mitigate the detrimental effects of their implementation could be far better spent
internally within our business to further improve our systems and procedures increasing the
safety of our operations. It could also be time spent growing our business, in turn increasing
our capacity to focus on safety. The whole regulatory reform process has been significantly
detrimental to safety for the industry.

I would like to say up front that we are blessed with the front-line CASA staff (AWIs and
FOIs) we are lucky enough to work with on a daily basis. I know this is not the case in all
areas, but we have CASA staff that provide us with great service, and who have a positive
and realistic attitude to aviation regulation and consistently achieve beneficial results for us
in short timeframes due to our operational pressure. This, I would say, is despite the
organisational culture of CASA, not because of it. In general, the staff we work with have an
incredibly high workload and they are burdened with trying to find a way to achieve a
positive outcome for us despite being given a poor legislative framework to operate within.
Our issue with CASA is those that develop the overreaching, overly burdensome, financially
crippling regulations. It is plainly apparent by the legislation, regulations and manuals of
standards that are being produced that those responsible for developing the new
documents actually have no concept of what we as an industry do. Worse than this they
consistently fail to engage in meaningful consultation to find out...

...There has been a long-standing pattern of CASA not accepting the specialist advice that they
themselves ask for or allowing those delegated with responsibility to actually carry out their
functions. I have lost count of the number of pilots I know that have had an aviation medical
approved by their Designated Aviation Medical Examiner, (DAME), only to have the CASA
medical section overrule the assessment and delay the approval unnecessarily. Countless
times I have personally seen pilots have a medical denied and be required to seek specialist
medical advice for the resultant medical advice only to be refuted by the medical section
causing the pilot (and his company) further extremely costly delays. Why does the CASA
medical section not listen to the specialist medical advice and assume to know better than
the doctor actually assessing the pilot? I do not believe CASA understand the severe stress
and financial burden this places on a pilot. Their entire career is placed under threat and
their employer is faced with significant increased cost to source a replacement pilot while
the matter is under review. This is serious overreach by the regulator.

When it comes to the drafting of new regulations consultation is sought but often ignored.
We are the subject matter experts. Those drafting the legislation have little to no experience
in conducting the tasks we complete every day and yet they fail to listen to our concerns or
the issues we have with the regulations being presented for comment.

We understand that the regulations that are drafted and presented to the CASA legal team
often do not even closely resemble that which is handed back after being made infinitely
more complex, confusing and far less relevant to operations. This however does not excuse
CASA for allowing the overly complex and confusing regulations from being forced upon an
increasingly frustrated industry...

41 John Cameron Aviation (PDF 1753 KB) 

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42 Confidential

43 Save Kempsey Airport Action Group Inc (PDF 719 KB) 

44 Australian Federation of Air Pilots (PDF 331 KB)

Summary and Recommendations

82. Regulation of aviation safety is a necessary task and the AFAP cautions the making of any
recommendations by this committee which are predominantly focused on merely superficially
appeasing the many frustrations raised through submissions to this inquiry. We strongly suggest
that the majority of frustrations and issues raised as problems for the GA sector and with CASA
are more accurately symptom-problems of more structural and systemic issues. For this reason,
we strongly recommend that resolution is not through quick-fix solutions, rather structural reform
is necessary.

83. The AFAP reminds the committee, and other aviation stakeholders, that the 2008 RRAT Report
identified very similar issues as to those currently being raised and we stress that the
recommendations implemented post that inquiry should be considered an insufficient set of
remedies.

84. The AFAP asserts that a legislative amendment is the necessary mechanism to ensure that
necessary aviation and CASA improvements and reforms both occur and remain regardless of the
composition of the CASA Board and executive level staff.

85. The AFAP proposes that the options available, to ensure that there is appropriate and adequate
parliamentary oversight of delegated legislation, are through the creation of targeted outcomesbased
expectations .

86. The AFAP thus provides specific recommendations:

• The AFAP proposes a specific amendment to s9A of the Civil Aviation Act to address the
current issues associated with civil aviation focused delegated legislation and standards, and
a lack of holistic and outcomes focus: the inclusion of a consideration of a system-of safety.
• The AFAP proposes that the accountability and oversight of CASA requires enhancement
through a review and reform of the Board composition. Furthermore, this should include
professional pilot representation to the Board.
• FOI provisions should be enhanced so that they can provide an effective and viable means
for community and industry sector-based oversight and accountability.
• The AFAP recommends that the Industry Complaints Commissioner should be established as
a separate statutory office to CASA, with powers to investigate and report to an authority,
independent of CASA and responsible to the Parliament.
• The AFAP notes the many poor consultation outcomes and recommends that the Aviation
Safety Advisory Panel be reformed to include member-based association representatives,
critically a professional pilot representative.
• The AFAP requests that the committee make specific recommendations to address the
deterioration of the expertise and resources of the Inspectorate staff in CASA.
• The AFAP recommends that the committee set up a process to reform the current structure
for regulation and standard documentation with an aim to genuinely decrease the complexity
so that the intent of standards is more readily comprehensible. The AFAP recommends that
this be the stated outcome expectation upon CASA by the Minister in the next version of the
Ministerial Statement of Expectations upon CASA.

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MTF...P2