GlenB embuggerance update: 22/11/2022
Via the AP email chains:
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
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.
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.”
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...
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
Via the AP email chains:
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
- CASR 141.050
- Civil Aviation Act s29
- 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...
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