[Sandy Reith]

You have to admire Glen Buckley, some have said desist or forget or just leave it because you can’t win. I say he is a courageous Australian who is fighting for justice and a fair go which matters to us all. In another life he would wear the Victoria Cross.

For far too long CASA, this out of control regulator, has been whacking people, putting them out of business and generally being at war with the whole of Australia’s General Aviation (GA) and for longer than most aviators and maintainers can remember.

But I do remember, and have watched with dismay, particularly from the late 1980s, as the bureaucracy has been allowed to grow unlimited sway over what should be a great Aussie industry.

Barnaby Joyce has been given the power that could reshape the regulatory environment with a rational and workable set of rules, and an administrator that is the servant of GA, not its scourge. This can only happen if the Westminster system is revived. The Minister is responsible and should administer through a Department of Government.

Sooner or later it’s all going to blow up in the government’s face as the years of neglect and bureaucratic overkill manifests itself in the realisation of the wasteland that should be a proper going aviation sector.

A sector that is a crucial element to our security as a Nation. We are not talking about the viability of coffee shops but the skills and infrastructure that could be needed in the defence of the Nation, let alone to show strength of capability. Never mind, she’ll be right mate, this is the government that is telling us, through an increased barrage of TV advertising, to respect people. We even get the same feel good advertisements from the Victorian government on the same commercial stations one after another. A sure sign that elections are coming. Ask Glen Buckley or Stan Van de Weil or many others about Can’tberra’s respect for hard working Australians, or the whole GA community for that matter.

Prime Minister Morrison declares he doesn’t want to see a federal ICAC like the NSW model because it is a kangaroo court. I agree with him, attempting to graft the inquisitorial European system onto the British legal framework with yet another ‘independent’ instrumentality will be one more too many. Can’tberra is already home to more than twelve hundred Commonwealth instrumentalities, many of them charging fees for (compulsory) service (?). Ironically the past master at the kangaroo court is CASA, right under the Cabinet’s nose.

Out of hope, politeness and receiving noises of sympathy and nodding understanding we have extended what is now an underserved period of grace to the new Minister, new Board of CASA and new CEO.

Six long months and nothing; except more GA people leaving the industry or dying, more aircraft being exported and still stuck with the debilitating regulatory nightmare that is Australia’s sorry legacy continuing for the aviation community.