[Peetwo]

Historical dots, dashes and a Harfwit's 2 year itch??

Reference posts:

Considerations and Courtesy.

With a Mooney and a Chopper down in the vicinity of RAAF Williamstown; I sneaked a look at the Unspeakable Prune. The poor old ATCO’s are, once again, in the gun. Anyone who would care to take the time to actually ‘read’ the restrictions and liabilities and punitive oversight rules these folk work under would actually be more inclined to congratulate ‘em for turning up to work every shift. It is a tough job; and, in busy sector/area like Sydney or Melbourne; it is fair to say that they are every bit as frustrated and hacked off as the aircrew.

Back in 2017 the ABC tried to get the message out – without much luck. Halfwit wanted a new system; couldn’t pay for it, so the ‘Bean counters’ set to work and (pardon the hated expression) ‘down sized’ to the bone and a little beyond. Profit was needed to bring on the now outdated “One Sky”. Consultants cost lot’s and lot’s; and, if only ‘consultants’ were the problem cost then it could have been managed. Alas, there was more; much more draining the budget – but we’ll never see that exposed to the light of day. All gone and forgotten now; well, until there’s a ‘proper’ inquiry.  Anyway – FWIW, try and deal politely and professionally with the boys and girls manning the consoles; it ain’t their faulty towers shit fight. Not by a long shot.

Updated 15 Feb 2017, 10:25am

Job cuts have left the government body responsible for air-traffic control in Australia in crisis, with senior Airservices officials providing damning accounts that the organisation is now "a huge risk to public safety".

Key points:

• Airservices staff fear it could take 'blood on their hands' before changes are made
• More than 700 jobs have been cut from the organisation to date as part of cost-cutting
• Senator Nick Xenophon is demanding an immediate cease of the retrenchments

"It's only a matter of time before we have a major aviation incident," one Airservices executive has told the ABC.

We captured the Halfwit, his accountant mate and a mystery guest leaving the Never Tell Motel on camera.

Had to smile.

Took a peep at the UP thread on the recent fatal Mooney crash. The mountains west of Coffs down to the Hunter Valley are not, by world standards ‘high’. But that is a relative term; low cloud and rising terrain are a potential trap for all aircraft, no matter the operating class. Anyway – Sunfish had a mini rant about this and that – but, for mine, brought out one, single point worthy of serious consideration:-

Sunny - And another thing...,,CASA and their lapdog, the ATSB, sunk the slipper into Angel Flight for far less reason. Where is the special report into East Coast transit airspace and procedures that force small aircraft into flying over water or mountains instead of along the coast with at least the possibility of a safe forced landing? More people have been killed by the current East Coast airspace rules than Angel Flight ever did.

A fair call and spot on. It could be taken a step further by a responsible independent ATSB. Instead of the hysterical, fatuous, flawed attack on CSF operations; why is there not an ‘in-depth’ study of VFR into IMC, designed to reduce (within tenable limits) the annual carnage caused by this Oh so preventable accident scenario?

Gods know what the Angel Flight debacle has cost; in real time and money, Senators by the hour ain’t cheap. No one minds the money being spent when there is a ‘result’. But, to see  the money squandered on a report and rules change, which affects SFA in the way of improved safety outcomes, is disgraceful. When you start to add up the cost of ‘the investigation’, the cost of CASA dreaming up bloody silly rules, the price tag for production of same, the cost of a Senate inquiry, the cost of generating a disallowance motion, the cost of parliament and the secretariat: all required to support a stupid response to a nonsensical analysis, you have to wonder at the value of the resultant mess. What has been achieved? SFA is the answer. Disgusting and beneath contempt.

Anyway, Onya Sunny, gold star for a neat bomb, in a nutshell.

Toot – toot

Being a bit quiet around here of late, P7 and P9 are both obviously victims of bored minds that are both genetically connected and at times (somewhat bizarrely) on parallel wave lengths -    

To begin with this particular case of 'passing strange' coincidences I'll first refer a Sic'em'REX post which was in reply to this Guardian article: Home affairs accused of 'simply ignoring its obligations in law' over FOI

HOME AFFAIRS WEAK ON TRANSPARENCY

After Home Affairs failed to answer a Freedom of Information (FOI) request of mine within the stautory time frame, I put a question on notice to the Home Affairs Minister.

The response to my question shows that Home Affairs is not taking FOI seriously. It reveals a very clear pattern in which the Department obstructs public access to information by simply ignoring its obligations in law.

Mr Pezzullo, the Secretary of the Department and person with statutory responsibility for Home Affairs' FOI compliance, has spoken out strongly against the leaking of offical information. That said, it is clear that his position on transparency of government information is consistent. He doesn’t want information to be released unlawfully - or lawfully.

I then noted the following 'comment in reply' to the REX post:

The avoidance of FOI or RTK requests is an art form in Government departments and instrumentalies. The Labor and LNP governments are not pressing for these releases to be made. It is time for the respective ministers to step up to the plate on this. The departments have as much to hide from the public representatives as the public. Bring on a broad ranging inquiry. Especially #casa.

This comment in turn got me thinking and trolling through the cyber dustbins to a point in time over 2 years ago with this AP post of mine: 

 Harfwit's FOI disclosure log update

And this Senate Estimates video segment of the same year:

   

Effectively NX (with some help from anonymous sources -  ) shamed the Harfwit into becoming more publicly transparent with his obligations under the FOI Act. Unfortunately, as we all know, appearances of being compliant with the FOI Act quite often masks the reality i.e the Govt agency just get smarter at O&O'ing their tracks...  

This brings me to another rewind moment to almost 4 years ago, where the former information Commissioner Professor McMillan handed down a decision that called 'bollocks' on Fort Fumble's blatant attempts to take the Mickey Bliss out of the FOI Act and at the same time subsequently dodge trying to fill the great craters (air safety issues) appearing in the Airservices/Defence Dept OneSKY trough fund (P7/P9 post above)...  

Ref: Risk mitigation Oz aviation (ASA/CASA/ATSB) style - Part I

P2 comment: My personal fav from the Prof McMillan decision:

29. It is not necessary that I fully consider the application of s 11A(5) to the remaining documents in light of my earlier findings that those documents are not conditionally exempt. I note, however, that had this arisen for decision there would be weighty public interest factors in favour of disclosure. They include that air safety is a matter of substantial public interest, and that the findings of a government regulator about the performance of another government agency are equally a matter of substantial public interest. The public debate that could ensue from release of those findings would be a healthy development that is more likely to enhance rather than impair air safety.

Well done that man & well said.. 

From that I assumed (wrongly apparently) that the additional information released should now be publicly available via the CASA FOI Disclosure log.

     
Hmm...and what's changed - 

MTF...P2 

Ps Sic'em'REX:

...but don't stop with Home Affairs...