[Cap'n Wannabe]

From Senator Rex Patrick's fb page..

ANGEL FLIGHTS UNDER THREAT

So, you’ve just found out you have cancer. You’ve caught it in time though. There’s a good chance that a course of chemotherapy will deal with it. The problem is, you live in Ceduna and there is significant cost involved in flying to Adelaide or considerable time and uncomfortableness (noting chemo can be quite disruptive) in driving there and back, a 14 hour round trip, multiple times.

That’s where Angel Flight comes in. They have a register of pilots who donate their time, and indeed their own money, to help regional and remote residents get to and from appointments by air. Angel Flight takes requests from health professionals, assesses whether the requested flight is within its capabilities, fully briefs the passenger on the flight arrangements and the risks, has the passenger watch a video explaining the service and then asks them to acknowledge that they understand the risks as presented to them. Angel Flight also has their own self-imposed minimum standards for pilots and aircraft.

Government agency CASA is trying to fix something that isn't broken by introducing new regulations that will effectively stop Angel Flight from carrying out its operations. Angel Flight has acknowledged that while there have been two accidents with community service flights (out of 46,000 flights), neither of them would have been avoided if these new regulations were in place.

It should also be noted that these new regulations from CASA were rushed. They did not go through CASA's usual consultation processes. These proposed changes should have been work-shopped by industry and the submissions properly evaluated, and a safety risk analysis conducted and released, before the new regulations were issued.

My colleague Rebekha Sharkie MP and I will move a disallowance motion in the House and Senate respectively so that the Parliament is forced to properly consider the new regulations.