[Peetwo]

Raiders of the lost trough? - He's back, 'that man again'..

Airservices Australia was the major sponsor of the fun and frivolity of the Safeskies (..are deadset empty skies ) and Chair Sir A & AgCEO Harfwit both made major contributions to the gobfest:

Airservices talks technology at Safeskies 2015
23 Sep 2015
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Airservices Australia Acting Chief Executive Officer Jason Harfield focused on the safety and efficiency benefits that will flow from advances in aviation technology at this year’s Safeskies conference in Canberra.

Mr Harfield took part in the Aviation Policy Group panel session held this morning, which included the Chief of Air Force, Civil Aviation Safety Authority and Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development.

Department Secretary Mike Mrdak outlined the key aviation issues facing the Australian industry and Mr Harfield expanded on the role advanced technology will have in service provision, airspace and air traffic management and civil military aviation harmonisation.

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast had already resulted in significantly improved surveillance coverage of aircraft across the continent, including at lower altitudes, as well as closer tracking of oceanic flights across the Pacific, he said.

Meanwhile, Airservices Chair Air Chief Marshal Sir Angus Houston AK, AFC joined a distinguished list of great contributors to the field of Australian aviation by giving the annual Sir Reginald Ansett Memorial Lecture at the conference dinner on Tuesday September 22.

Previous lecturers have included astronaut Dr Andy Thomas, former British Airways CEO Sir Rod Eddington and Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.

Widely-recognised as a pre-eminent event in the Australasian aviation industry calendar, Safeskies is attended by key industry leaders, regulators, government, operators and academia and Airservices is a sponsor of the biennial event.

Under a theme of ‘training for change’, Safeskies 2015 highlighted the rapid and dynamic change occurring in aviation from the demographics of our aviation professionals to the growth of remotely-piloted aircraft.

 Shame that after such a good week of positive spin & bulldust for ASA it may all come to nought, because it would appear that at the last Senate Public hearing (09 September) there was more than a figurative 'person at the back of the room'...

Back from hols 'that man' again, courtesy the Oz:

Audit office looks into Airservices management  

• by: EAN HIGGINS
  
• From: The Australian
  
• September 28, 2015 12:00AM
  

Reporter




Airservices chairman Angus Houston. Source: News Corp Australia



The Australian National Audit Office has secretly launched an investigation into Airservices Australia amid serious concerns about its financial management, executive use of corporate credit cards and alleged conflicts of interest in awarding big contracts.  

The move follows revelations in The Australian in recent months and disclosures at public hearings of the Senate’s rural and regional affairs and transport legislation committee.
Senators across the political spectrum have repeatedly grilled executives of the government-owned organisation that runs the nation’s air-traffic-control and navigation system, and fire and rescue services at airports.

This month, the committee called Airservices chairman Angus Houston to account for how much the board knew about what senators had described as “dodgy” and “incestuous” relationships among senior Air­services executives, a consultancy group hired to negotiate huge contracts on Airservices’ behalf, and the Thales aerospace group, which won a lead contract.

It is understood the ANAO considered a request from the Senate committee to investigate Airservices and came to a view the concerns were warranted.

“They’re doing a review of the whole thing because there are ­serious issues,” a source said.

It is understood ANAO officials attended an in-camera session of the Senate committee hearing this month.

In the public part of that hearing, Sir Angus admitted to some problems with a “perception” of conflicts of interest associated with the $1.5 billion program to integrate the nation’s civilian and military air-traffic-control systems, known as OneSKY.

These included a “husband and wife team” on opposite sides of a transaction between Airser­vices and the International Centre for Complex Project Manage­ment, the consultancy group it engaged in a multi-million-dollar contract to advise it on OneSKY.

Senators also pointed to the fact Chris Jenkins, the managing director of Thales Australia, is also chairman of ICCPM, which employs former Royal Australian Air Force officer Harry Bradford on an Airservices contract worth $1 million so far to negotiate on Airservices’ behalf with Thales.

Sir Angus told the committee “the board was very concerned” at the revelations and had commissioned an external consultancy to examine the issue.

“They agreed that there is a possible perception of conflict which requires additional management, but this possible perception did not have any actual effect on the tender process,” he said.

“There is no evidence that the issues raised by the Senate resulted in any improper influence, bias, favour or breach of confidence or any incompatibility.”

Sir Angus defended Airser­vices executives’ use of corporate credit cards but said at a recent meeting of the board’s audit risk committee, “a lot of the people, even those with very small amounts of credit card fraud, were referred to the police or had their employment terminated”.

Senate committee member Nick Xenophon yesterday said he was not wholly satisfied with Airservices’ responses to a range of allegations. “There are some critical issues of governance that need to be explored,” he said. “There is concern of whether this doesn’t impact on safety.”

Senators are expected to further question Airservices executives next month.
Airservices spokeswoman Vicki Huggins was unable to respond to questions by deadline.

 
Watch this space..

Who is next Murky perhaps?   MTF..P2