[Peetwo]

CASA Annual report QON; & Miniscule promos Green Paper??

Via APH:  Hansard out, see - HERE - or PDF Version - HERE:

Senator McDONALD: At 2.15 today, the Senate Table Office included a link to the CASA annual report. The chair of the CASA board presented this to the minister and Mr Betts on 20 September. Is that correct?

Ms Spence : That sounds right, yes.

Mr Marcelja : That sounds correct, yes.

Senator McDONALD: Assistant Minister, why has it taken so long for this report to be tabled? Is it a coincidence it's the middle of estimates week?

Senator Carol Brown: I don't have that information before me, but I can certainly get it to you.

Senator McDONALD: That would be helpful because it was tabled with the minister and the department, Mr Betts, and yet it has taken a month.

Ms Spence : Again, it would probably be better placed with the department, but there would be a process that would have to be worked through from when we provide it. A briefing will be provided to the minister. There are a large number of portfolio agencies within the minister's responsibility. So I—

Senator McKE NZIE: Ms Spence, you no longer have to provide cover for any minister.

Ms Spence : I'm just—

Senator McKENZIE: Senator McDonald is absolutely correct. It is an obscene amount of time for an annual report to sit in a minister's office, and it's hard not to be cynical that it's dumped—it's tabled—in the middle of estimates. So how are we supposed to ask questions about it? It is supposed to be tabled in a timely manner so that people who are interested can ask questions.

Senator Carol Brown: As I said, I don't have that information before me, but the way you've characterised it doesn't mean it's correct.

Senator McKENZIE: It doesn't necessarily—

Senator Carol Brown: I will get the information as soon as we can.

Senator McDONALD: One of the first parts of the annual report was that CASA supported DAME training in Fiji from April to May of 2023, with funding support from DFAT, to sponsor six doctors from PNG, three from Fiji and one from Tonga to participate in the DAME training. What was the cost of that training in the Pacific?

Ms Spence : That's usually met by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as part of the broader Pacific engagement, so I'd have to take that on notice. It may actually be better directed towards the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Senator McDONALD: So there was no cost for CASA staff for contracts to conduct the training?

Ms Spence : No.

Senator McDONALD: Terrific. That is the end of my questions.

Next from Miniscule DK, via FB:

Catherine King

Our Aviation White Paper will help set a future course for innovative companies like Infinitus Aero, an Australian company leading the way in green aviation.

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And a comment in reply from Mark Newton...

Mark Newton

Ms King:

The material accompanying your whitepaper claims that the regulatory functions of CASA, Air Services and the ATSB are fit for purpose and doesn't contemplate changing them; It paints a wondrous future for Advanced Air Mobility even though there isn't a single example of Advanced Air Mobility anywhere in the world; And it places 100% of its environmental case on hydrogen aircraft fuel, something which is also not used anywhere in the world and won't be mainstream by 2050 even if it is.

Your whitepaper is a marketing exercise, it isn't setting a future course for anything.

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MTF...P2