[Peetwo]

Angel Flight embuggerance update 27/11/19: A tale of a captured Minister and a complicit Laborial parliament destroying an industry through sheer bloody ignorance...  

References: https://auntypru.com/sbg-24-11-2019-thre...-fountain/




Plus: https://aopa.com.au/angel-flight-founder...his-wings/

Well done that man.

A good, valuable innings, nicely played. You’d have to take your hat off to man like Bristow and wish him well to enjoy his retirement.

“Mr Bristow set up a remarkable system of linking health professional registrations and referrals between all large city hospitals, to outback clinics, remote area nurses and specialist institutions, as well as a network of essential skilled volunteer pilots and drivers.  All services are free and at no cost to any person needing medical attention or to the government.”

No small achievement, a remarkable one when you consider the work, determination and effort involved stringing all the diverse elements into a cohesive, working system – all voluntary. The energy and dedication required phenomenal. 

I wonder what his thoughts must be on the ATSB report into Mt Gambier event and the CASA response to that report? A fellah with the amount of drive, intelligence and determination to set up and run Angel Flight would have to be a little taken aback by it; probably with good reason.

One could understand a reasonable man’s disappointment with a punitive regulatory philosophy. Take the two ‘fatal’ events involving Angel Flight ‘missions’ (I do wish they’d call ‘em something else): both essentially pilot error. Errors made by pilots trained, qualified and licenced under the current system. Both persisted into weather conditions which they were neither trained nor qualified to be operating in; deadly mistakes, made by the pilots; not Angel Flight.

Yet rather than address the ‘core’ issues, CASA prefer to bring in a new rule set, which punishes the many and changes nothing. Why can’t some of the alleged CASA ‘experts’ be sent to work with AF, help draft up some guidelines for the aircrew involved? Simple stuff like weather forecast analysis training; promoting early awareness leading to early notice that it may not be possible to carry out the assigned flight. Or, even a ‘checklist’ in the style of Flight Safety’s CFIT checklist system; which encompasses fatigue, weather, destination and in flight awareness of potential high risk elements. There are lots of things which could be done to foster, promote and reduce potential risk. The ‘rules’ CASA dreamed up do nothing to promote a real safety culture; they just punish those remaining ‘law abiding’ citizens who have not – as yet – made the wrong decision. I call that unfair, unreasonable and counter productive.

Only my opinion of course; but I say a lot of time, money, effort and aggravation has been expended to produce a negative outcome, which will not prevent another Loss of Control (LoC) in instrument only conditions. It will however force underground open reporting and determined addressing of an accident series which has been around for a long, long time. But I digress.

Enjoy your retirement Bill; well done. There may just be a few out in Bush who would second my best wishes. Cheers. (Cue round of applause).....

AOPA Oz - ..Today Angel flight has provided free flights and airport/city specialist drives totaling more than 20 million kilometres.  With in excess of 47,000 fights, carrying over 100,000 rural Australians from every Australian State and Territory, and every age group, Angel Flight continues to grow, ensuring rural people no longer need to drive up to 14 hours each way on dangerous outback roads to obtain medical check-ups and treatment, and for compassionate visits for those who must be close to loved ones in often very difficult situations...

Indeed Bristow should be lorded for his original concept and the tenacity with which he has promoted and grown that original concept...

However the following is an indictment and unfortunately a perfect example of how our democratic processes are being constantly eroded and corrupted by a self-serving, self-preserving bureaucracy scuttling around the protected, sterile, fantasy world inside of the Can'tberra bubble...

To begin the following Govt response to the Senate ATSB performance inquiry was tabled on 19 November while parliament was not sitting:

  Government response presented out of sitting on 19 November 2019.  

This response was also conveniently closeted away inside of the Additional Documents web page associated with the inquiry.

Then yesterday in the Dynamic Red this tabled document was listed for debate under item 13 'Consideration of documents' but was deferred due more important Govt business. Today at item 14 it is listed last on the agenda, so I wouldn't be holding my breath on any debate occurring today...  

Finally here is the disgusting, puerile but typical response from our useless and captured Crown Minister...

---

...The Australian Government welcomes the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport
Legislation Committee’s report on the inquiry into the Performance of the Australian
Transport Safety Bureau, and in particular its report on the June 2017 crash of a flight
conducted on behalf of Angel Flight Australia (the report).

The Government is pleased that the Committee recognised the expert analysis conducted by
the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) in examining the Angel Flight operations.
While the Committee provided comment on whether non-passenger carrying positioning
flights should have been included in the ATSB’s main calculations of risk, the Government
notes the ATSB’s focus on passenger carrying operations is consistent with the
Government’s Statement of Expectations to the agency.

In providing this response to the Committee’s report, the Government reiterates the
importance of the independence of regulatory bodies, such as the Civil Aviation Safety
Authority (CASA). CASA’s independence is set out in the Civil Aviation Safety Act 1988 which
also allows CASA to issue legislative instruments relating to the safety operation and
maintenance of aircraft where it deems necessary. For these reasons, the Government
notes the two recommendations in the report.

The Government is committed to maintaining a safe aviation environment for all
Australians. Passengers, whether fare paying or not, are generally less able to determine the
level of risk involved in the service they are boarding and rely on the Government to ensure
an appropriate level of aviation safety is maintained. The Government supports CASA, as
Australia’s civil aviation safety regulator, using its expertise and professional judgement to
fulfil that responsibility...

Running along the same theme of a broken democracy and self-serving bureaucracy, I note the following (unfortunately interrupted but TBC) speech debate from our former, now disgraced DPM and Minister Barnaby Joyce :

Mr JOYCE (New England) (19:00): I rise tonight to talk on an issue that I don't believe is going to get me many friends, but it's incredibly important. The issue is that we have to believe in our sovereignty as a nation. We have to believe in it in our philosophical approach, in our ethical approach and in our legal approach. We have to believe in our sovereignty when it comes to who owns what in our land. We have to believe in our sovereignty when it comes to defending our land. And we have to believe in our sovereignty when it comes to the rule of law in our land.

On the issue of Mr Julian Assange, I do not give any endorsement of his character whatsoever, but I do hold in great respect the legal principle of jurisprudence for this nation. It is a reflection of what we are as a nation. It is a reflection of our sovereignty. Mr Assange never committed a crime whilst in the United States. In fact, you might go so far as to say that Robert Mueller, in his investigations, has never called for an indictment of Mr Assange. It has been said, by the United States, that they wish to have Mr Assange convicted of espionage. But Mr Assange was in Australia; he was certainly not in the United States.

If we create a precedent in this nation where a third party, a third nation, can say, 'We believe you've committed a crime in our country, even though you were never here, and Australia has to extradite you to our country to face those charges,' that is an appalling precedent. What happens when the autocracy of China says, 'We believe someone in Australia has committed a crime, the way we see it in China; therefore, you must extradite that person to China to face charges.' It is a ridiculous precedent.

In 2010, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard wanted to take away Mr Assange's passport and charge him with a crime. The problem was, he hadn't committed a crime—not in Australia. And this process goes on. Once more, I don't think I'd even like the guy if I met him. I look at him from a distance and there's not much I like about him at all. But that's not the issue. Law is not just there for the people we like. Law is not just there for the issues we think are conducive to our view of the world. Law is there as a constant, as a permanent, as a compass. It's a compass so that we can understand what the sovereignty of our nation means to us on a personal level.

Remember, Mr Assange never broke or hacked into any computers. That was done by a person who was at the time a private in the army, whose name at the time was Bradley Manning, now Chelsea Manning. Bradley Manning is now a free person. Bradley Manning was given a pardon by President Obama. Bradley Manning is now walking the streets as Chelsea Manning. Yet we are sitting back contemplating or being silent in a process that might involve the extradition, from the United Kingdom to the United States, of an Australian citizen for a crime that has been alleged, or has been charged, or the process has started, in a third country, the United States of America. (Quorum formed)

If Mr Assange committed a crime by reason of reporting what was given to him by Mr Manning, then surely everybody who reported what was obviously printed by Mr Assange also committed a crime. Therefore, every newspaper and every editor in this nation has committed a crime. Maybe they should all be deported to the United States to face the music there!

I have to say that hypocrisy reigns supreme when people from the fourth estate, who have campaigned about protection of journalism, seem, in many instances, to have lost their tongues on this issue. Whether it's The Australian or The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald or the ABC or Channel Nine or Channel Seven or The Guardian—whoever it is—if they have reported on information that was taken by Mr Manning in the United States and then subsequently reported on WikiLeaks, which has an involvement and of which Mr Assange was a co-founder, then surely all those people in that train of printing things are now up for the same charge.

The only way that you can stand by this is to go back to core principles. If you believe that we are a nation that is good enough to have a process of law that has been tested by time which reflects our sovereignty, which reflects the nature and the tenor—almost the sanctity—of what a nation is, and if we are saying, 'We are not the United States of America and we are not China; we are Australia,' then you have to say that we must stand by our own process of law and not abscond from it from time to time at the behest of what is a strong and powerful ally but is not us. The United States of America knows it's a liberal democracy and that it must stand behind the principle of law. There are certain processes in law—such as habeas corpus—which you cannot just arbitrarily dismiss. I say once more that I do not give any endorsement to the character of Mr Assange in any way, shape or form, but I do give an endorsement to the process of law in this nation. And in the past, much to people's disgust—and, people said, to my disgrace—I stood by and tried to make sure that David Hicks—

Hmm...much like Assange people will either love him or hate him and will continue to be divided on BJ's obvious flaws in character but IMO one cannot argue with the point he is trying to make in regards to the sovereignty and principles of a once proud Liberal Democracy - just saying...


MTF...P2