[Peetwo]

Former miniscule 4D Chester beats chest on CASA overregulation - 

Via FB: 

Darren Chester MP

I’ve taken the community concerns over the future operation of Mallacoota Airport directly to the Federal Minister for Transport.

Changes made by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) have led to a decertification of the airport for instrument landings in times of poor visibility.

I am supporting the Shire of East Gippsland in its efforts to get the Minister and CASA to understand the unintended consequences of the new rules.

The changes which have impacted regional airports like Mallacoota are the latest in a long list of compliance costs and regulations which are impacting the general aviation sector.

The regulatory burden which falls on the aviation industry has a disproportionate impact on smaller regional operators who don’t have a vast administration team to do all the paperwork demanded by CASA.

As a former Minister, I was constantly trying to get the CASA bureaucracy to understand the real-world impacts of their rules and regulations on small operators.

These latest changes, supposedly in the name of safety, are more likely to endanger lives and delay treatment for locals and visitors to Mallacoota.

Mallacoota obviously relies on air access during emergency situations but also non-urgent flights to bring medical specialists to town will be impacted and people will have reduced access to preventative care.

Nobody wants to compromise on safety but nothing has changed at the Mallacoota Airport in terms of instruments landings in poor weather, except CASA has changed the rules.

#lovegippsland

Comments in reply...

Steve Curtis

Most changes to aviation regulations in this country over the last 20
years have not been as the result of a safety case. Most changes have been the result of harmonising with ICAO guidelines without any safety case at all. It could be argued the cost and administration burden imposed on industry has reduced safety.

---

Sandy Reith
Steve Curtis make that 34 years, from 1988, that is the time when CASA was created in order to remove Ministerial responsibility and create a Government Business Enterprise, the monopoly which is otherwise illegal in the real world of business.

---

Jeffrey Elsum

And it goes on and on... Safety is of prime imporantance and this is typical of a government body having all the power and no resposibility for their actions. I have not flown for years and I used to fly into Mallacoota a couple of times per year for about 8 years. Surely there is someone in the department with some kind of brain.

---

Lorraine MacGillivray

Darren please follow this through. As you will have heard CASA is out of control essentially. We have regulatory requirements that don’t value add to safety. We have a CASA that has become intimidatory bullies. Regulations that are not interpretable. It goes on and on. We need people heading up CASA that have true knowledge of our industry. Not a career public servant, ex airline pilot or military retiree. Have a look at the submissions into the current Senate Inquiry. Your support is needed in the interest of the future of general aviation. Otherwise you will be driving to Melbourne to jump a jet to Canberra.

Thanks

---

David Ian Grant

He did have a chance to actually do something but became tagged as "Do nothing Darren". CASA is a classic example of what can happen when a bureaucracy is given the power to administer an indefinable prime objective with no oversight or accountability. CASA is made up of competing ego's all with a different interpretation of how the given prime objective can be obtained, resulting in a miasma of legislation impossible to interpret or comply with that ultimately strangles the the industry it seeks to regulate. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been expended to create Australia's legislative maze and what has it achieved? Safety? define safety please. If common sense applied and regard for the expenditure and waste of public money, let alone the cost to an industry struggling to survive the solution is very simple. CASA should swallow its pride and do what new Zealand did, adopt US FAR's.

---

Steve Curtis

David they are well on the way to achieving their goal, “Safe Skies”. Empty skies are safe skies.

---

Sandy Reith

David Ian Grant what an incredible idea, the workable USA rules and harmonisation for the sake of growth of General Aviation.

What then to do with the make work salary factory of CASA?

---

David Ian Grant

So simple Sandy and cheap, only cost NZ five million or so, and practical, as most of our aviation products are sourced from the US it would simplify compliance allowing us to develop any innovative ideas, rather than sending them offshore and would unshackle our GA industry to grow, provide jobs, contribute to the national economy and provide equal or better safety outcomes. All in all adopting US FAR's just makes plain old common sense, I just dont understand why our political class dont get it.

---

Wally Sturgeon

...true David. But you have to consider the mythological aspects of the espoused propaganda that Aviation in Austrucka is 'special' when compared to the rest of the World ? ?.

---

David Ian Grant

Yeah Wally, for some strange reason the whole of the world is wrong, only Australia is right.

Ref - AP thread link for 4D's (non-)achievements as a former miniscule over sighting Aviation: Shame or fame for Chester? 

P.S.  “K” just sent this through – FWIW.
 
Of dazzling, dancing Darren you may despair
He of the much tweeted, manicured hair;
But to tackle the problems, both old and new is a simple thing, he dare not do
Lacking the bollocks to take the dare or ruffle the newly minted hair.
 
His mate, the country muff, believes taking the piss is quite enough
That to sneer and smirk at what we hold dear is his idea of fun,
Perhaps he aught to take a run
through the decimated ruins of industry, laid rotting, in the sun.
 
Tweet tweet.
MTF...P2