[Peetwo]

Oz Aviation GROUNDHOG DAY (again): Albo's historical culpability on destroying an industry? 

Reference from Senate Estimates thread Budget Estimates 2024-25 Program; & AQON update?? 

Program link: https://auntypru.com/wp-content/uploads/...5/RRAT.pdf

CASA:

Senator Janet Rice asked:

• Please provide, in table form, an annual breakdown of technical staff employed by CASA
from 2010 onwards.
• Could the breakdown please also include numbers of specific types of technical staff,
such as flight operations inspectors and airworthiness inspectors.

Answer:
An annual breakdown of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) workforce by aviation
technical classification for the period 2010-2023 is shown in Table 1 below. Organisational
alignment to move administration functions out of the technical division has occurred,
which has resulted in fewer total staff numbers, but maintains the functional and technical
deliverables.

Taking in that bureaucratic AQON waffle, to seemingly excuse the disturbing figures in the above table, which reveals that CASA is top heavy with bureaucratic administrative minions, while the tech crew numbers have stagnated and as a total are dropping off - IE 19 less tech crew than a decade ago.

Which brings me to why this is significant and relevant to this thread -   

First reference is to this March 2010 Gobbledock UP thread post, which features an old Ben Sandilands (RIP - ) article: 

Australian Safety Downgrade ??   

I am not sure whether this has been posted yet, but Sandilands has his information correct here. What an embarrassment and a farce. Although the FAA has a lot to answer for itself as its own backyard is a sloppy mess, but one has to wonder where things are headed in AUS? Lockhart River, Brasilia’s, Westwind’s, next ???

And the amazing thing is that even though the FAA and ICAO have shone a mighty large torch on the AUS Regulator, they still have maintained a line of inaction and sat on their hands! The government has not offered up one extra cent of funding, Fort Fumbles training for employee’s remains almost unheard of, and they are trying to cut back on FOI training and currency, they are cutting staff numbers by the week and those that aren’t made redundant are bailing faster than they can replace them, and there has been nil stable management leading the ship for years. Focus is not based on safety but is based upon budgets.

Oz aviation keeps rolling the dice on air safety

by Ben Sandilands

US Federal Aviation Administration audit of airline safety oversight in Australia that CASA welcomed last November has not gone smoothly, and could see this country downgraded by the American agency to the same untrustworthy category as parts of the third world.

In fact the results in November were sufficiently adverse to require further examination by the FAA in this country in coming weeks, this time without the spin evident in the only press release to come from CASA on this topic.

When asked to comment on reports by Washington DC sources that the FAA audit process had found insufficient progress had been made in fixing the deficiencies identified in a damning 2008 audit of Australian safety oversight by ICAO:

“The United States Federal Aviation Administration is conducting a review of Australia’s air safety systems. This review began late last year and is continuing.

Representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration visited Australia late last year and are scheduled to visit Australia again soon.

The review is looking at aspects of Australia’s aviation safety regulation and safety oversight framework. It is part of the United States’ routine international audit program of all nations whose airlines fly into US airspace.”
The CASA response doesn’t address the issues.

The original ICAO report, leaked to Crikey last May, found that CASA was under funded, was out of touch with its obligations under international aviation treaties, was incapable of identifying or understanding critical issues involving air safety, and was in part reliant on staff who were inadequately trained or otherwise incapable of dealing with key safety compliance matters.

As then reported, the final draft of the ICAO audit, the one that was waved around as a rapturous endorsement of Australian safety oversight by the Infrastructure and Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese, was in fact a negotiated summary of satisfactory outcomes that were contingent on extensive remedial work by CASA to a timetable that expired at the end of last year.

The appendices to the report, which outlined the incompetency of CASA, made grim reading, and while some of the ICAO mandated remedies were made as required, the FAA was always going to insist, whether invited or not, on finding out whether the nitty gritty of competent and comprehensive safety oversight had been achieved in full in Australia.

As yesterdays report on the ATSB failure to prosecute Jetstar for a blatant and determined refusal to comply with the law on reportable safety incidents illustrates, safety compliance and its oversight in Australia is non-existent by US standards.

We’re all flying in the lucky country, and the dice just keeps being rolled, again and again, on safety failures that attract serious penalties in the developed aviation world.

If CASA isn’t as lucky with the FAA as it was with ICAO, and it deems our safety oversight to be diminished, it will be the Australian carriers who are punished, as they will then be blocked from increasing their services to the US until their regulatory oversight is upgraded, and their flights and ground operations will come under ‘enhanced’ surveillance in America.

They will also, inevitably, be labelled in the US media, as less safe than US carriers.

Here we are over 14 years later and apparently we are still 'rolling the dice on aviation safety'...

Next reference is to the following 2 year old series of AP posts:

  Albo's (Great White Elephant Paper) contribution to the decimation of GA industry?? &  Albo's historical culpability on destroying an industry? 

Plus this Albo pic:



And...

...And despite mentions in dispatches by former DAS McCormick in his 2009-2010 AR review...

(ref: Pg 10-14)

Technical training was identified as an issue by the International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) in its 2008 audit and in the US Federal Aviation Administration’s International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) audit. We have responded by developing a comprehensive technical training and professional development program to enhance staff capability in areas such as leadership, regulatory skills and technical expertise.

---

&..
An audit of Australia’s air safety system by the US Federal Aviation Administration’s IASA program confirmed that Australia has retained its Category 1 IASA rating. The FAA was invited by Australia last year to conduct the audit of aviation safety regulation and oversight. Australia’s overall system of aviation safety oversight was found to meet applicable international standards.

...it was not once touched on in the 'message from the Chair', by then Chair Allan Hawke.

Although he did mention the extra funding facilitated by government in the 2010-11 Budget by gouging an extra 4 cent per litre fuel levy from industry, supposedly provided to fix the FAA issues. 

Extract from Hawke's message (note the 'cop out' Bureaucratese weasel words -  ) :

..The Board of CASA has now been in operation for the full year covered by this report. Appointed by the Minister and charged with the principal responsibility of ensuring that CASA conducts its business in a proper, effective and efficient manner, I believe that the Board has partnered and supported the CASA executive team and staff to deliver the
demanding agenda set for the Board by the government.
While CASA’s functions are specified in the Civil Aviation Act 1988, its direction has been set by the 2009 National Aviation Policy Statement (the White Paper) and the 2010
Australian Airspace Policy Statement. The White Paper makes the explicit statement that: ‘…the government is committed to ensuring that it [aviation] remains as safe as it can be. Safety remains the number one priority of the government in aviation’. The Board has therefore approached its tasks mindful not only that safety is the paramount aviation priority of the government, but that the industry must also have this priority as the foundation of their sustainability and future growth.
The Minister has made it clear that CASA needs to be a firm, fair and effective regulator. The announcement of additional funding in the May 2010 Budget was welcome and will be used to strengthen oversight of the industry. CASA’s organisation is now settled and aligned more closely with the Civil Aviation Act and the Board is satisfied that resources are appropriately directed toward CASA’s core functions. The Board has also noted that through the leadership of the Director of Aviation Safety and his executive team, there are now improved governance arrangements designed to provide the foundation for more consistent action and advice to industry concerning the
interpretation and application of legislation...
A subject that I wish to highlight this year is CASA’s achievement in regulatory development. Australia already has exacting aviation regulations, but these must be
continually reviewed, refined and enhanced. This year the Board has reported substantial progress to government in a number of regulatory areas, including the requirement for safety management systems, human factors training for regular public transport operations, drug and alcohol management plans, and the preparation of a new suite of maintenance regulations. We are pleased with these achievements but also aware that the task of ensuring that Australia’s aviation regulations are relevant, effective and aligned with international best practice is an enduring and challenging responsibility. What we consider to be the optimum means of achieving the best possible safety outcomes today will no doubt be succeeded by better approaches in the future...

And an extract from Albo's speech:  http://anthonyalbanese.com.au/category/m...hes/page/9

---

...CASA, the nation’s independent aviation safety watchdog, will recruit almost 100 additional frontline staff with the $89.9 million in new funding provided by the Budget. This extra investment in safer skies will be funded via a small increase in the aviation fuel excise, from 2.8 cents per litre to 3.5 cents per litre. The Government considers this to be a reasonable and responsible step considering the industry’s continued growth depends on the public’s ongoing confidence in its safety standards. Following the ICAO and FAA audits this investment in CASA’s staff and training is critical, and will strengthen the organisation’s oversight of the industry. Aviation safety should be bi-partisan, and the Government puts the safety of passengers ahead of other interests...

---

Reading that load of old codswallop and keeping in mind this extraordinary 'power shot' statement from McCormick in the (above) No.27 AQON...

"...Consistent with the functions of the Board and it's relationship with the Director of Aviation Safety, who has statutory responsibility for all regulatory decision-making, at subsequent Board meetings the Director has continued to keep the Board informed of the high-level changes and internal reforms he had initiated, or intended to initiate, to address operational and organisational improvements, including those cited in the answer to question 25..."  

...you begin to get an impression of the untrammelled power that both the Board and the Minister had gifted McCormick, all apparently in the pursuit of achieving the government policy of 'all care but no responsibility' for aviation safety... 

Now fast forward to 'here & now' with a different government, a new minister and a professional bureaucrat for a CASA CEO.

Q/ Then ask the question what has changed? Answer: Not much - 

Q/ Now ask what happened to the money ($89.9 million back then) that was gouged and continues to be gouged (reportedly +$120 million & climbing) from industry, supposedly to fix the deficiencies discovered in the FAA IASA 2009 audit?

Hmm...sounds like a question for Senate Estimates... 

Now refer back to the table in the AQON which doesn't reflect at all the '100' extra tech staff (that were supposed to be hired over a four year period in the forward estimates)...  

Hmm...I wonder if the ICAO and FAA IASA audit teams now know that for the last 15 years CASA has taken the piss on the serious findings and subsequent recommendations of both the ICAO and FAA IASA audits? - 

MTF...P2