I thank Dick Smith for his well meaning efforts but I suggest that he has missed the first link in his chain of reasoning. The cost, complexity and confusion of Australian aviation regulation destroy opportunities for investment, growth and jobs in the AUstralian aviation industry.
The litmus test for all legislation and regulation regarding aviation is to ask the question:
"How will this regulatory action affect Jobs, investment and Growth in the aviation industry?". If this is not done then the GA sector, and later Experimental and Recreational aviation is just going to wither and die.
With respect to Itsnotthatbloodyhard, I think you do not appreciate the situation:
I can't see where Dick is making any such point at all, nor that there's any evidence that Skidmore doesnt or won't listen. He mightn't be doing exactly what Dick & his cheer squad want, but that's not the same as refusing to listen. As for this being a proper forum for airing these concerns, I think you're having a lend of yourself if you think venting on here achieves anything beyond gratifying the cheer squad.
Aviation has been subject to a raft of reviews, the latest being the Forsyth Review, and they all say substantially the same thing: the system is broken. Every alphabet organisation in the country and hundreds of well meaning individuals have spent Twenty years of their own time and money on any number of consultations and patient attempts to get some sanity into the system and have received SFA! That is why we are reduced to squealing on Pprune! There is nothing left to do except start a political pressure group to declare war on CASA and what it stands for which is corruption, inefficiency and bias. It is an industry funded parasite.
We now have the situation where CASA decided to go the full EASA micro managed complexity route of aviation regulation in the name of "conformity" without any consideration of how that might affect industry, even though blind freddy knows that the Europeans have tied themselves up in regulatory knots so complex and expensive that GA is Europe is mega expensive where it occurs at all.
To put it another way: What is CASAs reaction to EASA's decision to substantially reduce the regulatory burden on GA after it became apparent that its regulatory approach is going to kill it?
No. This is no time for "tinkering around the edges", we are not having "a few teething troubles". The system is rooted and nothing is going to fix it. The system is run for the benefit of the bureaucrats that run it. Their 'customers" are risk averse politicians in Canberra. We are just "consumers' who get fed this ____ every day.
Now I must go and write to Airservices to get the aircraft noise "Certificate that says I am exempt from needing a certificate". I already paid $700 to learn how to write a maintenance release. I am up for a new ASIC, medical, biannual flight review and a $2500 transponder. Luckily I don't run a business or have required any special permissions from CASA or the costs would run much higher.
To put that yet another way: Why in hells name would any Governmennt approve of a regulator charging by the hour to "consider" an application for anything? Don't they understand that it is an open invitation to inefficiency?
As for AVM Skidmore, I'm sure he means well but the bureaucrats will wait him out. Even if a few heads are lopped, the structure of the system. wording of regulations, delegation of approvals, financial controls, etc. etc. have been set up for the benefit of a few bureaucrats, not the industry, and new appointees will succumb to temptation as quickly as a trade union official.
If I had my way, I would go to PM & C and confess. Then with their advice, set up a tiger team with no CASA involvement to adapt the NZ/FAA regulations to Australia n produce the legislative and regulatory package. I would get some organisation design girls to split up CASA and separate rule making from enforcement and ensure the independence of ATSB and incorporate that split up into the legislative package. I would then get the legislation passed, with transitional provisions and make everyone in CASA reapply for jobs in the new organisations. The guiding principles of the new legislation? Safety, fostering the development of the industry and an end to rule by "exemption".