More on this in The Australian today:
Air rescue group gave to Coalition
Gary Hughes | January 22, 2008
A COMPANY awarded contracts worth $200 million to run Australia's fleet of search and rescue aircraft was a financial donor to the Howard government.
Australian Electoral Commission records show the Paspaley Group, which operates the fleet of five Dornier 328-100 turboprop aircraft through its subsidiary AeroRescue Pty Ltd, donated $265,000 to the Liberal and National parties over six years.
The donations included $90,000 to the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory, $85,000 to the West Australian Liberal Party and $60,000 to the federal Liberal Party.
The donations from the Paspaley Group, which is based in Darwin, were made between 1998-99 and 2004-05.
The contracts were awarded to the group in 2004 and 2005.
The Australian revealed yesterday that the five hi-tech Dornier 328s had been plagued by mechanical problems both in the air and on the ground, reducing their availability for search and rescue operations.
There were four mid-air engine failures last year and in another incident, one of the aircraft had to land immediately after emitting smoke on take-off.
On New Year's Day, one of the Dorniers was unable to take off from Perth because of mechanical problems and another search aircraft had to be chartered in itsplace.
AeroRescue was awarded two contracts worth $196.5 million by the Howard government to operate the fleet of twin-engine Dornier 328s on behalf of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
AMSA admitted in its annual report in September that "some initial technical difficulties" with the Dorniers had led to reduced availability, but said these problems had since been overcome and the aircraft were now operating "within expectation".
But aviation industry sources told The Australian that the problems with the aircraft have continued.
The five Dorniers, which are based in Perth, Darwin, Cairns, Brisbane and Melbourne, are undergoing modifications to their cargo doors, which means one will always be out of service on a rotation basis during the next six months.
A spokesman for Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said the aircraft had met or exceeded performance levels.
"From the advice that we have received, they are doing the job that they are contracted to do," he said.
"In the past 12 months, they have responded to 630 search and rescue incidents and saved 250 lives."
He said mid-air mechanical failures experienced by the Dorniers had been fully investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
"Incidents were thoroughly investigated and resolved as one-off incidents and quickly rectified," he said. "They don't see a systematic problem here."
The Paspaley Group, which also runs Pearl Aviation, donated $45,000 to the ALP between 1998-99 and 2004-05 as well as $15,000 to individual ALP candidates in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
A spokesman for Paspaley declined to comment yesterday.
The first $24.5 million contract to operate a search and rescue aircraft in Darwin was awarded to Paspaley's subsidiary AeroRescue in November 2004. There were eight bidders, including at least one from an operator already providing search and rescue services to AMSA.
In November 2005, the Howard government announced that AeroRescue had been awarded a $172 million contract to provide a further four aircraft for AMSA.
Regards,
David