[Sandy Reith]

Wombat has well described the basis and outcome of a failed system of governance, a cogent statement that could be beneficial if there was the slightest interest anywhere in the Government.

Boiling it down again, or making a complimentary distillation of this extraordinary and disgraceful state of affairs, there are two irreconcilable elements in the Government’s utterly unintelligent framework for the administration of aviation.

1. As Minister Joyce states (did he read it?) he is responsible along with Parliament but in next breath states that CASA is independent. It’s hard to believe that any mature and educated legislator cannot see the impossibility of such an arrangement that cuts across the Westminster system of responsible government.

2. The childish, fictional and forlorn hope that is embodied in the undefinable notion of safety having priority over every consideration is a recipe for extreme and thoroughly impractical regulation.
In the eyes of the independent regulator, as Wombat exposes quite clearly, in pursuit of its own ends of power, money and ego, General Aviation is the whipping boy, the raison d’être. Safety trumps a healthy industry.