[Peetwo]

GlenB embuggerance update: 25/06/22

Via the UP:

25th June 2022.

COMPLAINT 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 into the closure of my two businesses and the direction from CASA that my continuing employment was no longer tenable.

My family has been significantly impacted by this matter. I have been bankrupted. CASA closed my businesses, 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. My physical and mental health has been impacted and my poor wife has had a total of 6 days free of work since CASA did this in October of 2018, as she tries desperately to claw back some level of meagre financial security for our future. As a small business owner, the business that CASA closed, was in fact my superannuation. The future of my wife and I is bleak, and at 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.

As the person impacted, by the conduct and decision making of CASA employee, Mr Jonathan Aleck, at the very minimum I am entitled to a thorough investigation by the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office, and a written explanation of why CASA took such disproportionate action against my business.

Not only for me, but 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. Ever.

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.

Mr Aleck immediately implemented restrictions on my businesses ability to trade, from that date of 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, determined my business unlawful and forced all my customers to leave, leading to the inevitable closure of the business, and significant material harm and trauma. Not only to me and my family but 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.

In that initial notification,

· 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 a number of short term “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.

With those restrictions being in place for over 6 months, CASA then stood by their initial determination and closed the business down when they forced all remaining customers to leave, despite that not being the customers preferred option.

All of this was done without CASA ever providing any supporting safety case. It was a reversal of CASAs previously issued approvals.

CASA never issued any documentation throughout this entire process that gave me the right to appeal or challenge any decision. I was completely denied procedural fairness or natural justice. These are clear breaches of CASAs obligations in administrative law, as outlined in CASAs own procedures (Appendix- Enforcement manual)

The entire matter is absurd.I had been operating in that same structure for the last six years. What made this even more absurd is that 2 1/2 years earlier CASA had worked side by side with me, as I invested many hundreds of thousands of dollars in systems, procedures and personnel to become one of Australia’s first schools to get accreditation as both a Part 141 and 142 organisation in April 2017, and we were operating in the same 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.

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. There are none. Despite my repeated requests for a explanation, none has been forthcoming. It is important to understand that I was not disputing CASAs safety case. The point is that there is no safety case. CASA have never put forward any safety case in support of Mr Alecks decision making. Surely one would expect that his decision making is driven by decisions on safety with supporting safety cases. 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.

As the person most impacted by this entire matter, and significantly so, it is beyond any reasonable comprehension.

This entire system 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 18 months later 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 the CASA employee is substantive.



That revalidation by CASA that commenced in June 2016 and was finalised 9 months later in April 2017 occurred while we were operating in the multi base multi entity structure.

I provide the above as background information to the complaints that follow.

At a later date I will submit a formal complaint to your office of misfeasance in public office against Mr Jonathan Aleck. That is not the purpose of this correspondence. I am requesting that the two separate complaints be handled independently. An allegation of misfeasance in public office will understandably require opinion and judgement to be applied. The response to this complaint is far simpler and really only requires the very briefest of responses, and possibly as short as a yes or a no. 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.

To the “trigger” for this complaint.

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. 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. 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.

Due to the substantive nature of the false and misleading information, I am compelled to request that the Ombudsman hold off releasing any final report until these matters can be clarified by CASA. It is not reasonable or fair for the many people impacted by Mr Alecks 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... (1/12)

Comments in reply:

Flaming galah

Originally Posted by glenb View Post
I have been working away diligently in the background. I am about to submit a complaint to the CASA ICC

Why even bother with the ICC? Last time you complained you found that the ICC avoided the key issues, didn’t give an honest assessment, lacked integrity and was just a tool used by CASA to delay access to the Ombudsman.

If Pip Spence and the Board are getting rid of the current ICC as rumoured, if you insist on the ICC charade you could wait until the replacement is in situ and then maybe you’d get a fairer hearing?

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Sunfish

I don't like your chances Glen. My guess is that CASA will try and explain you away to the new Minister as a crank.

Nothing will save GA.

Dick Smith was right - 9 Mar 2016:

I’d like to re-emphasise what I’ve told many people and that is there is no light on the horizon and many tens of millions of dollars more is going to be lost in general aviation in this county before anything is done about it.

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aroa

Sorry. No such thing as a "fair hearing" in the CAsA lexicon.

While the ICC guy, in my case, was a good and conscienicous bloke, and came to talk with me due to his concerns of about what was happening..or not. He was over run / over ruled from higher up the food chain. They didnt like his result.

The "investigation" (sic) was then handed off to a women plucked from Human Resources or whatever the wanko name for that division was called then. ...Sheeple and Culture...some 'culture' !!
Result. "On the basis of probabilities, wasnt him." ( The CAsA perp)

A teenager, or a proper investigator could have worked it out. The available fact were overwhelming.
CAsA is all about covering its polished arse...and then some.

So they have criminals and perjurers working in the rotten place.....Who cares.?

MTF...P2