[Peetwo]

Submission 48 - EHMAC (Dic Doc) & Submission 50 - Richard Rudd.

Via APH website:

48 Evans Head Memorial Aerodrome Committee Incorporated (PDF 1542 KB) 

Preamble

My Committee, The Evans Head Memorial Aerodrome Committee Incorporated appreciates the
remit of this inquiry with an appropriate focus on CASA and related agencies and GA and the
aviation landscape. We submit that CASA and other agencies including government departments
cannot be seen in isolation from other critically-important factors and must be seen from a ‘systems’
and historic influence perspective. These factors include inter alia:

1. operation and leadership (political and senior bureaucrat) of the current federal department
responsible for aviation and aviation infrastructure and its predecessor departments and
their legacies,
2. planning departments in various states who hold membership of NASAG for The National
Airports Safeguarding Framework and have, in our view, conflicts of interest with regard to
provision of ‘independent’ advice including issues about safety on and around our airfields.
Their relationship with CASA is unclear and requires further investigation with regard to
lobbying and delay tactics for putting in place appropriate safety measures around our
airfields,
3. political interference from the ‘big developer lobby’ with regard to responsible development
of policy and action to protect the broader ‘public interest’ with regard to aviation and
aviation safety and standards relating to aviation and aviation infrastructure,
4. political interference in the planning process on and around our airports and airfields at all
three levels of government with consequences for GA, aviation and public safety,
5. a fundamental shift in the understanding and execution of what constitutes assessment of
risk not only in aviation but other sectors of the economy. The move to an “Affordable Risk”
model governing the way in which we view aviation and planning around our airfield, and to
the outsourcing of functions associated with risk assessment and accident evaluation are
particularly problematic as they determine the way in which risk is managed and ultimately
costs to society including loss of life and impairment of GA,
6. lack of genuine qualification and experience in the sector from senior decision-makers who
may not have the necessary professional skills to lead and make ‘informed’ decisions about a
very complex industry with many moving parts. Just because you do well at managing, say,
a veterans’ affairs matters, does not automatically mean you will do well at managing
aviation safety. In our view, strong technical knowledge is required in addition to
administrative skill for those working in aviation safety particularly in a leadership role. By
all means refer out to specialists with the appropriate knowledge for assistance but you
need to make sure that the person doing the referring has the necessary knowledge and
experience to make informed choices and decisions in the initial outsourcing process and in
the subsequent assessment of the independent report returned to that person. It is our
experience, and the empirical literature supports this view, that you need to have a good
grasp of the technical issues as well as an understanding of pitfalls and weaknesses of
decision-making in uncertain situations to make good decisions and make appropriate policy
settings.
7. The problem of contract, limited-term employment where those employed on large salaries
have ‘confidential’ workplace arrangements which are not subject to public scrutiny. Such
arrangements fly in the face of free and fair independent advice. If I know my contract has
to be renewed every three years, I am more likely to toe some political line for fear of nonrenewal.
This is a whole issue in its own right beyond the current remit but ultimately
important to it in terms of good decision-making, or in fact any decision-making at all! It
needs to be examined critically. Are we really getting the best advice and value for public
monies with such contractual arrangements? Do the managers at the top really need to be
paid at such high levels commensurate with the private sector to make sure we get the best?
Where is the evidence which supports this view? Is it the case that the high salary levels are
there to make sure that there is no interference in the revolving door between the private
sector and the public service and have nothing to do with attracting the best people to the
job?

(IMHO sub 48 should be required reading...  )

50 Mr Richard Rudd (PDF 144 KB) 

PREAMBLE : So far in this Inquiry and that of 5 years ago there have been a multitude of excellent submissions detailing the failures in all respects of CASA’s “safety” regulatory regime. With a cast of thousands, a cost of billions and thirty years in the making, we have a disastrous outcome, where it is no safer now to fly than it was before, and GA /General Aviation is decimated as a result.

It’s a bureaucratic scandal with national repercussions. Abandoned fuel bowsers and airfields without small maintenance facilities, flying clubs, aircraft or instructors across this wide land where rapid aerial transport and employment should be a ‘must have’.

It proves time and again that the lack of governance by successive Governments and and Ministers over this ‘free-range’ no oversight ‘Authority’ has been a disaster for the Aviation Industry and General and Private aviation in particular.

As a result CASA has developed a culture akin to its own Soviet. “We have the Power” In their dealings with any potential victim they can and do make up stories to discredit, and introduce phoney ‘safety’ issues to help make the case, just like allegations made during the Stalinist regime to get rid of someone.

MTF...P2