[Peetwo]

A red letter week -

Project Eureka by Mitch in today's Oz -

Project Eureka: red tape ‘crushing general aviation’

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
  
• The Australian
  
  
• April 8, 2016 12:00AM
  

Marc De Stoop, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

A wide-ranging review of Australia’s aviation industry has called on the government to sell off its billion-dollar-a-year Airservices air traffic controller organisation to help fund a revival of the struggling general aviation sector.

The 130-page report — dubbed Project Eureka — has been put together by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and is scathing of aviation ­bureaucracies, blaming creeping over-regulation for a dramatic decline in aircraft movements at secondary airports, a drastic reduction in aviation mechanical engineering apprenticeships and the destruction of small aviation businesses.

The AOPA — which represents 2600 general aviation aircraft owners and pilots in private, commercial charter and airline operations across Australia — claims the general aviation sector is collapsing under the weight of onerous regulation.

In a radical proposal, the review has urged the government to privatise Airservices, the government-owned organisation that employs more than 4000 staff and manages air traffic around the nation’s busiest and largest airports as well as co-ordinating rescue and firefighting services for on-site accidents.

The organisation brings in ­annual revenue of about $1 billion, pulled largely from airports, light aircraft operators and ­airlines including Qantas and ­Virgin, which pay for the organisation’s ser­vices.

According to the author of Project Eureka, AOPA president Marc De Stoop, Airservices should be privatised and the proceeds funnelled into the general aviation industry.

“We want to create an industry trust fund with an independent board like the Future Fund that will support local jobs in general aviation and maintenance, and generate new sources of revenue through the creation of innovative aviation companies,” Mr De Stoop told The Australian.

The Eureka report claims a full privatisation of Airservices could bring in as much as $4bn. It proposes that the proceeds of the sale be split, with half going to the commonwealth to help claw back its budget deficit and the other half used to establish an industry trust fund to be chaired by aviator and businessman Dick Smith.

Privatising national air traffic controllers is not unprecedented territory. Canada privatised its national air traffic controller in 1996 for $1.5bn while the British government has partly privatised and owns 49 per cent of its air navigation system.

The AOPA proposes that this fund could be used to reinvest capital in the general aviation industry to buy back secondary airports, spur on job creation and increase the sector’s involvement in new research and development activities. It also recommends that portions of this fund could be used to provide venture capital for innovative start-ups.

This would allow the fund to take equity stakes in potential innovative businesses, which in turn could provide ongoing returns.

“Funds could be allocated to both industry and universities in partnerships to provide the high tech innovation the industry constantly needs to survive, grow and prosper,” the report said.

The Eureka report also bemoans the slow death of secondary airports around Australia, saying exorbitant leasing fees and the encroachment of commercial property developments is resulting in a decline in aircraft movements from these airports.

“The statistics prove this undeniably. Bankstown Airport, the centre of the Australian GA industry in the 1980s, was the busiest airport in the southern hemisphere with over 550,000 aircraft movements per annum. It is now below 180,000,” the report said.

“Commercial business parks can be established anywhere where appropriate land zoning exists. Aviation businesses need a runway to survive. Runways just can’t be built or located anywhere. They are essential pieces of infrastructure.

“Funds from the trust should be used to finance the buyback of the secondary GA airports. The current owners are not acting in the spirit of the Airport Sales Act which was supposed to foster aviation activities. Instead they are simply being run as a business park with rents benchmarked or based upon similar business parks in the surrounding areas.

“This was not the intent of the Coalition’s Airport Privatisation Policy.”

A spokesman the Department of Infrastructure did not say if the government was considering selling Airservices but said it would examine the issues raised in the Project Eureka report once it was provided by AOPA.

“General aviation issues are already being considered by the General Aviation Action Group that has been established by the government-formed Aviation Industry Consultative Council. The group includes members across a range of general aviation sectors,” a department spokesman said.

Update 09 April 2016 - A battered & bruised Hitch, on the week that has been on the AOPA PE front..

The Last Minute Hitch: 8 April 2016

08 Apr 2016



There are some weeks when we scribblers feel like the shiny rolling thing in a pinball machine. This week was definitely one of those; my head still has marks from some of the bumpers. It's all about a meeting in Canberra where AOPA president Marc De Stoop presented a letter outlining Project Eureka to the Department of Infrastructure and Transport. One day later, CASA DAS Mark Skidmore resigned from AOPA. GA commentators have since over-worked the phrase "dummy-spit". OK, let's try to unravel what this is about with the use of a handy bulleted list.

• AOPA's Project Eureka is a different approach, but doesn't contain much different from what we as an industry have been clamouring for for years. It's all logical and necessary.
  
  
• Skidmore is not saying why he resigned. Pundits say it's because he's upset that AOPA went directly to the minister or because the letter criticised CASA. Personally, I don't believe that. I think Skidmore resigned because the letter implied he would bury the document in the CASA bureaucracy. That is the sort of thing that Skidmore is trying to change, so AOPA's assertation could be read as showing lack of faith in what he's trying to do.
  
  
• Marc De Stoop is actually a supporter of Skidmore and points out that the problem is the safety regulation model that is holding back genuine reform, and has shied away from any direct criticism of Skidmore's agenda or capability.
  
  
• The CASA DAS shouldn't be a member of AOPA anyway. AOPA is first and foremost a political lobby organisation whose prime nemesis is CASA. Gotta be a conflict there! To give him credit, when Skidmore first took the job he told me he felt that the head of CASA should be a member of AOPA. I have always felt that was unsustainable, and the DAS clearly understands that now.
  
  
• His resignation e-mail should never have been leaked to the public. Poor form. Having said that, it could also have been worded more diplomatically.
  
  
  

Now, lots of loud clapping from me for AOPA's move and Project Eureka. AOPA has not taken the lead in GA for a couple of years and this does show leadership. Standby for a Last Minute Hitch take on Eureka, hopefully next week. - look FWD to that Hitch 

For the record, I also am not a member of AOPA. I was actually a Vic/Tas representative years ago, but had to resign when AOPA put their magazine on the newsagent shelves. That created a clear conflict with Australian Flying and I knew it.

Please see my post HERE, quote:

..Besides the Dick Smith threatened legal action is way more than merely the CTAF v ATC area frequency issue. IMO it is about tackling CASA under those parts of the Act, in particular S9A & in this case 11A,  that they hide behind when questioned or threatened by industry stakeholders.

9A  Performance of functions

             (1)  In exercising its powers and performing its functions, CASA must regard the safety of air navigation as the most important consideration..

11A  Compliance with Australian Airspace Policy Statement


             (1)  Subject to subsection 9A(1), CASA must exercise its powers and perform its functions in a manner consistent with the Australian Airspace Policy Statement.


             (2)  If CASA proposes to exercise a power or perform a function in a manner that is inconsistent with the Australian Airspace Policy Statement, CASA must notify the Minister in writing that it is proposing to do so and of its reasons.

             (3)  In this section:


Australian Airspace Policy Statement means the statement made under subsection 8(1) of the Airspace Act 2007.

Simply put Dick is asking CASA to provide the evidence (empirical or otherwise) that they have considered S9A in compliance with S11A in making the radio frequency decision contrary to RAPAC and industry concern. The 'show me the money' approach from Dick could equally be used under other aviation safety matters where CASA point to S9A for justifying a decision, for example the archaic 19th century Skates adopted policy on CVD pilots...

In my humble opinion this is where the fight should be taken up and focussed. Breakdown the 'mystique of aviation safety' - that seems to place minister after minister, PM after PM, MP after MP into some kind of pollie trance - then you are halfway to winning real reform and stopping the bureaucratic decimation of the GA industry. At the end of the day we don't vote for the fat cat bureaucrats!

If you want a classic example of a bureaucratic 'safety mystique' being seriously broken down, so that Joe Public and even a pollie gets it, you only need look at how the Owner/Operator Truck driver v the RSRT - HERE - matter has escalated.

Senator Barry (legend) O'Sullivan -   “This (pay order) defies every single principle of the free-­market environment,” Senator O’Sullivan told The Australian. “It’s going to pit owner-drivers against company drivers. It’s clear that this is going to require a legislative solution. This is as big and probably bigger that the suspension of the live-cattle trade in 2011. This is that serious.” - Bazza really gets it

 

Senator Glenn Lazarus - “I am going to make as much noise as I can possibly make about this because this is absolute bulls*** what they are doing to you guys,” he told the crowd, Owner Driver reported...

...Senator Lazarus said he would support the government and if the bill failed he would bring to parliament his own private bill to abolish the tribunal. - Lazarus gets it

And NX is beginning to get it - Crossbench Senator Nick Xenophon, who supported the Gillard government in setting up the tribunal, said he had changed his mind on its effectiveness.


“I’ve spoken to many owner-operators who are very fearful for their livelihoods,” he told AAP.

Wouldn't we love to hear the words that government are going to legislate/amend the Civil Aviation Act to force CASA to foster and promote aviation in this country...


MTF...P2   

Ps In latest developments the National Road Transport Association late yesterday started a petition that already has over 1700 names:

Delay the Road Safety Remuneration Order & abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal

[/url]

NatRoad Association





NatRoad Association
[url=https://www.change.org/organizations/natroad_association]
1,731

Supporters

The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT) has delivered the 2016 Road Safety Remuneration Order (RSRO) that is effective as of 4.15pm 7th April. The RSRO discriminates between small owner-drivers and larger transport companies with different rules for different people and businesses that put the money into the hands of large business.

With this order in place it will impact not only 35,000 owner-drivers but also the industry and the Australian economy. Increasing prices of groceries, loss of trucking businesses and all of the peripheral business that rely on the industry. The mum’s and dad’s who have worked hard to set up businesses, put their own money (houses & families) on the line, employ others and pay people for services.

These businesses operate all over Australia and are the lifeblood of many communities whether they be located rurally, regionally or in cities.

The fate of the owner-driver now lies in your hands.

Minister Cash will introduce a bill into parliament at the next sitting and we call on you to delay the 2016 RSRO until 1 January 2017 with the aim to ultimately have the RSRT abolished.

This petition will be delivered to:

• Leader of the Opposition
  Bill Shorten
  
• Senator
  Nick Xenophon
  
• Senator
  Jacqui Lambie
  

7 more decision makers...

• Senator
  Glenn Lazarus
  
• Senator
  David Leyonhjelm
  
• Senator
  Bob Day
  
• Senator
  John Madigan
  
• Senator
  Zhenya Wang
  
• Senator
  Ricky Muir
  
• Senator
  Richard Di Natale
  

---

Read the letter

 
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