[Peetwo]

KC & the AMROBA Band - Latest Newsletter Vol 12 issue 03

Stop Press:

There is now a light at the end of the tunnel.

CASA’s Mark Skidmore has rejuvenated industry representatives at the SCC meeting, 31st March. His opening speech at the SCC has provided industry with some confidence that this CASA will be a different CASA to the last 2 regimes.

See pages 2 & 3 for more detail on the SCC and Operations Sub-committee meetings.

However, the long term answer to aviation's woes is still very political. The Civil Aviation Act must be changed to permanently implement some of the ASRR Report recommendations.

Even Dick Smith has identified that the problem is a political problem and has decided to financially back a political party with focus on government departments and agencies over regulation and spending.

Dick Smith Political Party

As Dick stated on the Paul Murray TV show, CASA has continued to create unnecessary regulatory and administrative requirements that can be replaced by simpler performance based regulations if needed with less CASA involvement.

There is now a very good chance that under Mark Skidmore’s stewardship, the SCC and its Sub-committees will once again vet regulatory/ standards development.

CASA has no option but to task the new Subcommittees with meeting the government’s “Red Tape Reduction” and “The Australian Guide to Regulation”.

Firstly, AMROBA is fully supportive of the government’s initiative to minimise regulatory impost.

If you look closely at many regulations they are not really needed.

Many ‘practices’ do not need mandating as they can be achieved simply by providing advisory material.

AMROBA doubts whether CASA has the right staff with the right mindset to implement the government initiatives as they are tarred with the same brush as the previous EASA regulation growth.

Why try to impose what other government law already requires???

SCC Meeting 31st March 2015

At last a Standards Consultative Committee (SCC) meeting where it was treated as it was intended; a ‘steering committee’ to vet regulations, standards and advisory material. CASA’s new DAS, Mark Skidmore co-chaired the meeting and right from his opening speech, industry representatives sensed a new approach by CASA. It was a constructive meeting with input from SCC members being accepted by Mark Skidmore.

I am now optimistic that a recommendation to Mark Skidmore on how the SCC should operate and the involvement and role of industry subcommittees to vet all proposed regulations, standards and advisory material will be sent to CASA.

Industry ‘working groups’ must return to reporting to the Sector Subcommittee for endorsement of change.

Working groups, who CASA has used to bypass the Sub-committees, are usually specialists who are biased to the subject of the working group and their recommendations may, or may not be beneficial to the wider community.

Mark Skidmore recognised that ‘working groups’ should be subsets of the SCC Sub-committees.

It was interesting that both the Maintenance and Certification reports to the SCC stated many tasks (ACs, MoS, etc changes) were being carried out that have never been raised at an applicable Sub-committee meeting simply because CASA does not hold Maintenance & Certification Sub-committee meetings. AMROBA made a point of this lack of consultation.

"CASA’s Avmed provided the decline in young pilots stats. From 1997 to 2012, the percentage of over 60 pilots has grown from 2.8% to 7.5% of the total pilot population. This clearly identifies that we are not attracting enough new pilots into this industry to make it grow."

One of the major discussion was the relevance of the SCC and it’s Subcommittee if they are not used to determine if there is a need for a regulation in the first place. The new approach by EASA’s Executive Director was also raised as a reason we are in a mess.

"Mark Skidmore has recognised that there needs to be a partnership with industry to fix these issues—it will be interesting to see action supporting the positive indications from Mark Skidmore."
{Ps In other words Skates - "actions speak (much) louder than words!" }

TICK..TOCK miniscule where's that SOE??

MTF..P2