[Sandy Reith]

Reading this letter attributed to John Anderson, but no doubt not wholly written by him, it is no wonder that CASA is in such a complete shambles. Would it be possible to invent a more wordy statement full of every possible nuance with this way and that way, balance with judgement, all things to all people repetitive exhortations? A more soothing and complete tour de force of hackneyed motherhood type concepts and charming little similes like the "friendly cop on the beat" it would be hard to find. Catch all ideas like we want to get on with the rewrite but take your time to get it right, not one specific timeline or performance indicator, nothing to say work to a budget figure, nothing about anything except in mile wide  generalisations.

Nauseating nonsense in extremis, it would be really amusing if it was just a parody of a bureaucratic directive.

Sadly the 'cop on the beat' concept is one of the key contributors to the extraordinary decline of GA. The regulator should not be the cop and judge and jury. I cannot see why CASA should not be largely taken out of the prosecution of those offending the rules. Maybe it could alert the AFP to breaches but certainly its mindset of total control is part of the cop on the beat concept. There simply was no need to put so much of the regulations over to the criminal code, let alone strict liability. CASA would have to take the prize as greatest make work program in the history of the Commonwealth, too bad it has cruelled a good industry in the process.