Question from the Senate estimates hearing on 23rd May 2012 and Senator X and Senator DF bears reading:
Senator XENOPHON: Perhaps you could take on notice that incident that was put to me about 12 February.
Finally, Mr McCormick, given that there has been the issue of an increase in separation breakdowns and given that CASA is undertaking this comprehensive review and overview of Airservices Australia, would it be fair to say that you would understand the concern that there has been in the aviation sector and amongst the public about some of the issues relating to Airservices Australia?
Mr McCormick: Certainly, breakdown of separation, loss of separation assurance, TIBA incidents or the use of TIBA: all of these things by themselves and individually are perhaps understandable and explainable and have been in some ways justified, if not totally justified. When you put them all together, you start to form a view that there may be more to this than meets the eye. We have no specific intelligence that is leading us to go to any particular area of Airservices and say, 'This is where we think there are issues.' With our normal surveillance program, we have a robust oversight of their training schools. We are doing work in that particular area and, of course, all of these incidents together will come under the spotlight when we complete our review of Airservices.
Senator XENOPHON: If people within the organisation or who have left the organisation are prepared to come forward with information, would they be given some protection in terms of their careers and any legal immunity?
Mr McCormick: I think I have said here before that my personal view is that I protect whistleblowers regardless of whether they have protection under some sort of legislation, as far as it goes—though it is safe to say that many whistleblowers are quite often disgruntled ex-employees and sometimes the veracity of their evidence has to be tested. We do not reveal the names of people who give us information. If anyone wishes to come forward, we naturally would take their input, but we do not plan to hold public hearings because it is not an issue in which the public has much interest; it is a technical issue from our point of view at this stage.
We are happy that the level of safety is acceptable. However, there is always room for improvement. We will form our full opinion on that when we have our report—it would be premature for me to state otherwise, I think, at this stage—and still allow procedural fairness to Airservices.
OH Yeah casa [caa]