[Peetwo]

Sic'em Rex gone but does his legislative concept still have legs??

via the Yaffa:

GA Stalwart Rex Patrick falls in Senate Race

23 May 2022



One of general aviation's most ardent advocates, independent senator Rex Patrick, has very little chance of being re-elected in South Australia as state swings towards The Greens.

Patrick and team-mate Leonie McMahon gathered only 2.1% of the votes as of Monday morning, trailing well behind the ALP (32%), Liberal (32%) and the Greens (13%). They received only 62 above-the-line votes and 11,899 unapportioned votes.

Senator Patrick, who recently promised to introduce legislation compelling CASA to adopt FARs, described his political career to the ABC as being on "life support." Although there at the time of writing there is still a mathematical chance, it is very unlikely Patrick will be able to scrape back into the senate..

Rex Patrick took a great interest in the plight of general aviation, and has been an active and involved member of the Senate Estimates Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport (RRAT) and the senate inquiry into the GA industry.

Another great voice for GA in parliament, Senator Glenn Sterle from WA, looks to have retained his seat with the ALP ticket reaping 34% of the vote in that state.

Hmm...presumably Sterlo will be the new Chair of the RRAT Legislative Committee and senator McDonald the deputy?? Does this mean the GA inquiry will continue or be abandoned?

Dots'n'dashes on the ANAO audit??:
Was the ANAO audit of CASA an initiative of the RRAT committee? If so will the committee examine those findings as part of the inquiry? 

Via the Mandarin...

ANAO audit flags issues in CASA’s surveillance



The pandemic saw 230 of 306 planned surveillance events not being conducted in 2019/20. (Pakpoom/Adobe)

An audit from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has found issues with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority’s (CASA) surveillance approach, although ANAO acknowledges CASA has appropriate policies and largely carries out its surveillance functions.

‘Surveillance’ in the report includes operational checks of equipment, inspections of premises and assessments of safety performance.

The pandemic saw 230 of 306 planned surveillance events not being conducted in 2019/20. COVID-19 has had a lasting impact on the aviation industry, with border shutdowns impacting both international and domestic travel.

The lack of risk-likelihood in prioritising surveillance projects was named as an issue in the audit, diminishing CASA’s approach to surveillance. The audit further found a lack of consistency in the application of surveillance across sectors, with delays in identifying key areas of focus for surveillance.

The report found that although CASA’s National Oversight Plan (NOP) contained high-level principles, it was not supported by a more detailed and specific project plan. In response, CASA aims to have formally implemented the NOP by end of 2022-23.

A reduction in the level of detail in surveillance reporting was highlighted in the audit, with recent reporting found not to accurately reflect issues identified by CASA. Reports to the board contained the percentage of planned surveillance projects completed, not the efficacy of its surveillance.

Another area flagged by the report was CASA’s management of staff’s conflicts of interest. In May 2021, an internal report found that 30% of staff who had declared a conflict of interest when they applied for the job had not made a declaration within the week of commencing the job, as is required.

In response to the finding, CASA has said it will update its online system for staff to update their conflicts of interest.

CASA has accepted all seven of the recommendations made by the ANAO. The last time CASA was subject to an audit by ANAO was 2010.

Ref: On Crossbenches and Boards & SBG - Of talking Bollocks and testiculation. 

New approach to scheduled surveillance commences

CASA’s National Surveillance Selection Process (NSSP) came into effect on 1 July 2018.

A key element of the National Oversight Plan, the NSSP is a CASA-wide, annual schedule based on a standardised approach to prioritising, classifying and scheduling authorisation holders for surveillance.

The NSSP incorporates a systematic approach to classifying and ranking authorisation holders based on a combination of centralised data and local knowledge.

The NSSP allows CASA to apply a significant national focus to surveillance. It also provides some operational flexibility to accommodate changing priorities or safety concerns, or to gain efficiencies by combining like activities for multiple operators in a single location.

Similarly, if an authorisation holder is scheduled for three surveillance events in a year it might make sense to do them all at once. Alternatively, if there is an operational rationale, surveillance might be spread out so that more regular contact can be maintained over each 12-month period. The NSSP has the flexibility to allow either approach.

The NSSP schedule will help CASA to maintain a more integrated oversight picture, and to better monitor where effort is focused and ensure that resources are directed to where they are needed most. This will become a cyclic process whereby what is observed each year will inform and continuously improve how surveillance is approached in the following year.

Scheduled surveillance is just one of the ways CASA interacts with authorisation holders and gains a holistic picture of their operations. In changing the way in which CASA approaches oversight, we are also looking at the history and data obtained when providing regulatory services.

The CASA Aviation Safety Committee meets monthly and reviews information from sources such as scheduled surveillance, sector risk profiles, regulatory services information, accident/incident trend data and reports on significant accidents, in order to build an aviation safety view of a given aviation sector, sub-sector or specific organisation.

The committee analyses the information to identify any emerging safety risks and subsequently determines whether there is a need to conduct a national, sector-focused campaign of surveillance activity or an organisation-specific surveillance activity in addition to the ongoing NSSP scheduled surveillance.

Which proves IMO that the CASA executive continue to take the piss when it comes to oversight by the Board and  obfuscation of transparency to both the minister and indeed the department -    

Solid factual evidence that left to their own devices CASA simply cannot change/reform itself; which means that a serious  legislative amendment of the Act that brings CASA back under the control of the Minister's dept, combined with an appointment of a proper reform DAS are the only solutions to properly reforming the regulator. That initiative could be driven by a Senate RRAT committee with the testicular fortitude to see it through to the ultimate conclusion.    

MTF? - Yes much!...P2