[Peetwo]

Update: Aunty/ATCOs/Xenophon vs The Oz(Cleary)/ASA/Harfwit

References:

Update: The Oz (Cleary) v Aunty (Sveen/Sturmer).

I gather the quotes are from this spiteful piece: 

ABC’s ‘selective’ safety reports
12:00amPAUL CLEARY
The ABC may have breached its charter by not reporting industry comments about air safety contrary to its reports.

Now it could be that this is a typical Newscorp v ABC journalistic ding-dong but from past experience, when the Oz was neutered by the government and it's self-serving aviation safety agencies under former aviation editor and CASA-sexual Steve Creepy, I am very cynical and suspect...  Especially when you consider some of the Aunty Pru archived 'that man' Higgins contributions on the subject of ASA & OneSKY trough funds etc..etc

Helpful hints for Cleary...   Besides referring to your work colleague Ean Higgin's archive of articles on the diabolical shenanigans at ASA, please refer to the PAIN Youtube archive: https://www.youtube.com/user/004wercras/...shelf_id=0 

Hint: Look for tags and/or titles with words like Airservices, performance, OneSKY, ANAO, KPMG, dodgy deals, audit or even Aunty Pru...

The feud continues -

Via the ABC Media Manager:

Response to The Australian, 17 February 2017
Posted 17th February 2017
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The Australian’s journalist Paul Cleary has made a number of false claims in his report “ABC’s selective safety reports” (The Australian, 17 February 2017) concerning an ABC News investigation into safety issues at Airservices Australia.

Mr Cleary was told in no uncertain terms that his accusation that the ABC journalists who reported this story had omitted interviews with two major industry bodies was wrong. Furthermore Mr Cleary failed to properly record the ABC’s response to his false claims.

The statement given to Mr Cleary, which he failed to include in his story, said: ABC News attempted to get comment from the AIPA multiple times, more than a week before the story was published, but it did not provide any statement or anyone to be interviewed. No one from the RAAA was interviewed, so no comments were omitted. The reporters spoke to dozens of current and former Airservices Australia employees throughout the investigation into the organisation, over several months. Every person interviewed on-the-record was included in the report.

The crucial elements of the investigative report were the differing views inside Airservices Australia itself as to the safety implications. A further report, aired later the same day on NewsRadio and conducted by a different reporter, reported on the industry views on this issue.

The ABC has sought a correction by The Australian to repair this record.
 
ENDS
For more information
Nick Leys
Media Manager, Corporate Affairs
[i]leys.nick@abc.net.au[/i]

Here is where the ill-informed Cleary attack on the bona fides of the ABC article becomes quite disassociated with reality. News.com.au (i.e. mainstream NewsCorp) reported the following headline in response to the ABC revelations: Air traffic controllers facing challenges to maintain air safety:

EXTREME measures are being taken by Air Traffic Controllers to compensate for extensive job cuts, including slowing down the arrival rate of aircraft to reduce pressure on workers.

Airservices Australia has denied aviation safety is at risk from the 705 positions made redundant despite concerns expressed by Air Traffic Controllers.

The denial came after emails leaked to the ABC highlighted concerns among senior executives about the “sheer lunacy” of job cuts which had pushed the organisation to “breaking point”.

Civil Air president Tom McRobert told News Corp in December they had concerns with how “rushed” the redundancy program had been to date, with people being released from positions before proper contingencies were in place.

He confirmed measures had been taken to delay aircraft in some instances when an Air Traffic Controller had called in sick.

“It’s definitely the safe way to go. It doesn’t help the airlines run the service they need but it shouldn’t be an every day occurrence,” Mr McRobert said.

Civil Air executive secretary Peter McGuane yesterday confirmed the practice still happened “intermittently”.

“We are fortunate in that our Air Traffic Controllers are among the most highly trained, highly skilled and experienced controllers in the world,” said Mr McGuane.

“But Civil Air supports any additional examination of air traffic safety procedures by federal Parliament.”

He said the challenges faced by Air Traffic Controllers as airports got busier made it critical that Airservics Australia actively addressed the issue of fatigue.

“Air Traffic Controllers must be properly resourced with the back-up and technical support they need to get the job done,” Mr McGuane said.

“Rostering practices and adequate staffing levels make all the difference when it comes to fatigue management.”

Followed by this bollocks from Harfwit :

CEO Jason Harfield said any suggestion that Airservices Australia was compromising on safety was totally incorrect and refused.

“There is no risk to the travelling public,” said Mr Harfield.

“Airservices is safely restructuring to deliver more effective services to our customers by focusing on our core air traffic control and aviation rescue fire fighting services.”

And in later statement from the ASA spin doctors:

Airservices statement on recent ABC coverage
15 Feb 2017
[/url] [url=http://auntypru.com/forum/javascript:window.print()]
Airservices response attributed to Jason Harfield, Airservices CEO

Any suggestion that Airservices is compromising on safety is totally incorrect and refused.

There is no risk to the travelling public.

It is important to note that throughout the Accelerate Program there has been extensive union and employee consultation. Airservices takes feedback from our staff very seriously.

 How staff were able to provide feedback

Consultation with staff took place over a five week period on the make-up of the new team designs, including several ‘townhalls’ style meetings with executive managers in the major centres for staff to ask questions.

Staff were also given the opportunity to submit queries or feedback directly through their managers or via email. The Airservices ethics hotline is available for staff as well as a dedicated safety reporting system that can be accessed through the organisations intranet.

Almost 2000 queries or feedback were received from staff, which were considered and responded to, in the final team designs.

 The role of the NOC

The questions put forward by the ABC misrepresent the role of Airservices National Operations Centre. The NOC is a point of liaison between air traffic control, airline and the airports for traffic demand and capacity issues. The NOC provides updated weather information from the Bureau of Meteorology to help airlines with scheduling issuing 24 hours prior. The NOC does not directly engage with aircraft.

As part of our broader business changes, this unit has been streamlined and work patterns have changed because we can provide this service more efficiently, while ensuring the safety of our operations. The change involves shifting from a dual/duplicated supervisor model to one where all supervision tasks are performed by a single point of authority.

 How we are transforming Airservices

Airservices provides services that safely move more than 150 million passengers on more than four million flights every year.

Airservices is safely restructuring to deliver more effective services to our customers by focussing on our core air traffic control and aviation rescue fire fighting services.

These changes do not effect or involve operational and rostered air traffic controllers and aviation rescue fire fighters, in fact they are quarantined from these changes.

Throughout the life of the Accelerate Program information and changes have been oversighted by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

Airservices has and will continue to work through a detailed and rigorous process which sees every VR application, or IVR consideration, assessed individually to determine any potential impact on the safety of our operations.

The staff headcount at the end of 2016 was 3691 employees, a net reduction of 705 people over the course of the calendar year comprised of 922 employee exits and the recruitment of 217 employees as we started bringing necessary new skills and experience into the business.

Airservices began providing information regarding the transformation to the regulator from May 2016. This included Airservices new operating model, a formal Safety Plan which detailed the overall safety management activities in support of the Accelerate Program and providing routine updates to the regulator via face to face briefings, phone and email as the program moved through each phase.

Safety cases

Importantly Airservices is working through a detailed and thorough process to reduce the size of our business and ensure the safety of our operations is maintained as we continue to deliver our important services to our customers.

Safety has been assured by a rigorous and thorough process, delivered in line with the Program timelines. All ‘risk assessments or safety assurances’ have been conducted in adherence with these pre-determined timelines, as shown in the attached document.

Any suggestions that the assessments were impacted by Senate Estimates is totally incorrect as shown in the pre-determined timelines (attached) and in the CEO’s testimony in the Hansard from that Estimates hearing.

However I ask Harfwit how is it remotely possible to believe this latest ASA propaganda that tries to create the image of a full, frank and independent 1 billion dollar a year peerless Government enterprise when as CEO it would appear he has completely shutdown Airservices Australia's compliance and responsibilities to the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act 1982:

On FOI requests & word weasel confections -

In an effort to track down the documents released under the ABC's FOI request, I made a visit to the ASA FOI Disclosure Log. Unfortunately if you refer to the FOI Dislosure Log webpage - see HERE - you will discover that the last entry was on the 28 August 2015 and in fact the last update ( website administrative visit) was on 30 September 2015.

'Passing strange' that the ASA FOI requests appeared to have either dried up or ASA were disclosing less at around about the same time that Harfwit took over from Margaret Staib in the Acting CEO role...

Q/ Dear ATP (Australian Tax Payer) would you believe this man??

MTF...P2