[Peetwo]

In the strictest liability -  

Ref: https://auntypru.com/faery-dust-sprinkle...pony-pooh/

Reference: 

From the ABC -

Do not reverse onus of proof for black economy crimes say experts.

This is going to get interesting – let’s see how the great unwashed, long suffering, voting Australian tax payer likes a dose of CASA style ‘strict liability’. Are the nations ‘earners’ going to put up with it? My bet, they won’t realise what’s happening until it’s far too late to change it. I hope someone is paying attention. Guilty until proven innocent – I can see the public just loving the crap out of that. One thing though, whichever party offers to strike out the ‘new’ regulation will win a landslide election.

Toot-toot..

You kids just can’t be trusted....

Interesting article Mr Ferryman, thank you for posting it. It really gets to the heart of one the big issues affecting aviation. From Kharons previous post and the article link;

“Tax experts and business lobbies have hit out against a Treasury proposal to reverse the onus of proof — that is to say that someone is guilty until they prove themselves innocent — as part of a bid to stamp out illegal cash economy activity.”

Our very own Dr Voodoo, having presided over CAsA’s legal department for a long long time and having had a front row seat at the trough for almost 25 years at CAsA is famous (infamous) for saying; “aviators are guilty of something, it’s just that most of them haven’t been caught yet”. Yes, sadly fools like Aleck are conditioned to believe that those who work in aviation are guilty of some form of nefarious criminal activity in which severe punitive actions must be applied, even when proof of no wrong doing has been discerned.

‘Guilty until proven innocent, and even if proven innocent you are still guilty’! Just ask Bruce Rhoades, Paul Phelan, Karen Casey, the late Gerald Repacholi, Shane Urquhart and a host of other operators who have been belted by CAsA and it’s endless bucket of legal money or have had their plight crushed as they try to find justice for the death of their loved ones and loss of their business. Terry, Jonathan and other members of The Golden West Mafia are a testimony to this perverted Government mindset. Ironic considering endless Politicans and senior bureaucrats are constantly getting pinged themselves for being lying, deceitful, despicable shonks. I guess it takes a thief to know a thief, hence their mistrust of us avaition IOS innocents.

Tick Tock

Well caught GD - Choc Frog......P7.

Funny coincidence Gobbles but while doing some trolling on the AusALPA submissions web page - ref: https://ausalpa.org.au/Submissions - I note that even the Sky Gods have some rather large reservations about strict liability and the penalty provisions contained within the draconian Australian aviation safety rule set - as prescribed by Dr A and the CASA Iron Ring: ref -  https://ausalpa.org.au/Portals/5/Documen...130625-767

Strict Liability

AusALPA views the Government’s approach to strict liability in civil aviation law to be an unrealistic and unhelpful use of this type of provision. It represents an overly simplistic approach to compliance that focuses on pilots without sufficient, if any, regard to operational circumstance or safety outcomes. A recent example of this type of unfairness was CASA’s pursuit of the pilot involved in the Westwind ditching off Norfolk Island as distinct from the neutral approach that CASA adopted towards the operator, as revealed by the Senate Inquiry.
We recognise that there is a place for strict liability offences and that the unusually high level of regulation in aviation will likely result in a higher than normal number of such offences.

However, there seems to us to be an increasing propensity to deliberately reduce complex systems to a series of simple isolated factors whose purpose is primarily to support strict liability penalty provisions, rather than to address the real safety outcomes, when those factors are part of a dynamic and interactive operational environment. This “tail wagging the dog” approach to compliance and enforcement often means that few organisational malaises are redressed or even mitigated and those who have the greatest influence and control over corporate culture inevitably escape attention, let alone sanction.

AusALPA has no evidence to date that suggests in any discernible way that CASA, DIRDC or any of the Attorney-General’s portfolio agencies have done any review or reconsideration of the wholesale application of strict liability provision to civil aviation offences.

That situation was, and remains, unacceptable to us.

We have been told that a review has been planned at some future date. We have also been told that the review will be conducted separately from the operational teams developing the rule sets and, most likely, exclusively by legal practitioners from the various Government entities involved in producing civil aviation legislation. AusALPA is strongly opposed to this approach.

Any review of strict liability provisions in civil aviation law must be conducted primarily as an operational activity in the first instance. Secondly, any relevant legal advice should preferably come from external sources such as the Australian Law Reform Commission rather than from the people who may well be motivated to minimise change and to preserve the status quo. In any event, such a review is essential and urgent.

Penalty Provisions

In 1990, when the CAA licensing rules were rewritten to become Part 5 of the CARs, the operational drafters reviewed each provision and applied maximum penalties drawn from the range of 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 penalty units. Judgement on proportionality was applied very carefully, both to reflect the balance between administrative and safety outcomes as well as to provide guidance to the courts on the relative severity of the offence.

Today, we find that what were once considered to be minor offences, indicated by low range penalties, have morphed into major offences attracting the maximum allowable penalties of 50 penalty units. There are very few, if any, offences that vary from this apparently default level of maximum penalty.

AusALPA can find no public evidence of a formal process that changed the original risk and preservation of evidence assessments to a penalty scheme for which virtually every offence attracts the allowable maximum. The complete lack of transparency of such deliberations can only create distrust among those most affected. This is particularly so when the regulations appear to have adopted a much narrower class of persons committing offences, in many cases removing operators from the spotlight. It is far from clear to us why CASA has chosen to resile from adopting the broadest range of potential offenders, reflective of a true safety systems focus.

Has CASA withdrawn from providing guidance to the Courts on relative severity of offences, leaving the Courts to determine proportionality simply on the basis of the arguments presented in each case? Has the concept of system safety fallen out of favour within CASA in preference to targeting only pilots, many of whom have no real or effective protections whatsoever in preserving their livelihoods when faced with conflict between safety and commercial outcomes?

AusALPA strongly asserts that there must be a transparent process that re-examines all of the penalty provisions in accordance with a publicly available doctrine and that includes relevant stakeholders. Once again, this review process must be an operational review rather than a legal practitioner’s review in the same vein as we set out above for the review of strict liability provisions.

Strict Liability and Penalty Review Timing

AusALPA considers both these reviews to be urgent.

Part of the development of any new rules must be demonstrations of good faith by the regulator that the imposition of penalties, both administrative and criminal, are the outcome of well-considered, systematic and proportionate assessments of the gravity of each offence. It is critical that the reviews are not seen to be self-serving internal processes, since the required collateral outcome is the building of trust in the way that the regulator meets its duty to the Australian public, rather than to itself.

MTF...P2