Clapton, the criticism of the CASA leadership shouldn't stop just at Byron. In fact, I think it would be warranted to go further up the line. He gets his marching orders from on high. A considerable part of the problem stems from Parliament House.
It appears that the CASA is just lurching from one Federal Royal Commission/Inquiry to the next. A board won't necessarily prevent the wayward application of administration within the CASA management. We saw that with Monarch.
The problem appears to stem from a Federal Government that puts an elected representative and his/her advisors in charge who might be outstanding strategists and politicians, but with absolutely minimal knowledge on the practical side of the application of regulation of aviation matters. At some stage, the political goals and aspirations of the Minister and the party in charge will inevitably clash with the goals of the CASA. For example, the unstated goal of the Minister is to stay in power. This is achieved through the cultivation of votes. It's not difficult for roles to get muddled and the CASA to be roped into vote cultivation through various means. So how do you change this short of having a referendum on moving to a republic? And even then, would anything change?
I mentioned before about external review processes. Somewhere, the current process is coming up short when the CASA situation advances to such a stage that the public feels it necessary for a Federal inquiry and a major house cleaning within the CASA. There has to be a way of getting a wayward organisation back on track before the damage is done. The CASA has been heading down this misguided path for at least ten years now. Ask anyone within the CASA aside from C level executives and the story is the same. So why has it taken so long for something to be done? The USA has some interesting policies in this regard: the General Accounting Office (GAO) on a federal level and state mechanisms such as the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission. From its website:
Quote:
In 1977, the Texas Legislature created the Sunset Advisory Commission to identify and eliminate waste, duplication, and inefficiency in government agencies. The 12-member Commission is a legislative body that reviews the policies and programs of more than 150 government agencies every 12 years. The Commission questions the need for each agency, looks for potential duplication of other public services or programs, and considers new and innovative changes to improve each agency's operations and activities. The Commission seeks public input through hearings on every agency under Sunset review and recommends actions on each agency to the full Legislature. In most cases, agencies under Sunset review are automatically abolished unless legislation is enacted to continue them.
The Sunset Advisory Commission has just recently delivered a scathing report on the Texas Department of Transportation. It might not work in Australia, but it's certainly worth a look and appears to take some of the politics out of the day to day management of a government agency and regulator.
Clapton. I will not debate aviation law with you; from your posts and mutual admiration society with Creampuff, you obviously hold legal qualifications, which I do not.
You appear to be defending CASA’s performance over recent years? If so, you may care to comment on the following:
From my perspective, within the high capacity airline industry CASA is considered a mild inconvenience, toothless and not to be taken too seriously. One of the few, if not only CASA airline prosecutions in recent years is the alleged Qantas 737 departure from Launceston on 23 October 2001 without activating the runway lights, the pilots being committed for trial four years later on 4 November 2005 on charges brought under the Civil Aviation Act. Do you think it competent and reasonable for CASA to take four years to commence legal action and is still unable to resolved this matter in the Courts?
Whilst CASA appears unwilling or unable to act in respect to the airlines, there appears ample, if anecdotal evidence it has methodically and systematically attacked and decimated the general aviation industry, including CASA employees acting contrary to its legislation. This forum is not the place to name “names”, however there appear to have been a number of incidents where CASA employees have quietly received the “DCM” (Edited: see note below), whilst CASA has never rectified or recompensed the damage caused?
According to the CASA Annual Report, Counsel Assisting the Coroner in the Lockhart inquest has a long and rewarding association with CASA. Whilst I accept he may be free to act in his private capacity, would not his acceptance of the appointment as Counsel Assisting be considered, ethically at least, a conflict of interest? Similarly, the consultant to that Inquest was a previous employee of both Transair and CASA, FNQ, surely a further conflict of interest?
Regulatory reform began twenty years ago in 1988, through at least three Directors, with access to a large number of CASA lawyers, but regulatory reform is still far from complete. Considering a number of countries, including Canada and New Zealand carried out similar reforms in less than one quarter of that time period, do you believe CASA has the will, legal competence and capability to carry out that reform?
It appears unfortunate the Senate Inquiry is limited to the period 2003 to date. An independent and impartial review of CAA/CASA performance from 1988 to date may have led to a far more competent, professional, capable and accountable Regulator, exercising it’s legislative function across the entire Australian aviation spectrum, as anticipated by Sect 9 of the Civil Aviation Act 1988.
Note: This forum is not the place to even very obliquely identify individuals!
Tail Wheel
Last edited by tail wheel : 8th June 2008 at 02:15.
Reason: Individuals identified.
I agree that many of the politicians have a lot to answer for - but they will never be held accountable. Similarly with the Department of Transport which was meant to oversee CASA but just let it do what it wanted. However, the driving force behind all this was Byron ( and his hand selcted yes men) in his efforts to placate industry and stop any criticism of CASA (if you take no regulatory there will be no criticism of CASA from industry - if you let industry dictate what rules to write there will be critcism of CASA - if you get rid of all those who stand up to industry there will be no criticism of CASA) - all the time forgetting that CASA was created to protect the public in the wake of the Monarch and Seaview disasters.
The Senate inquiry is right on the heels of the US Congressional inquiry into the FAA and its cosy relationship with industry. Hopefully it will be as strong and forceful as the Congressional inquiry.
"CNN 1 April 2008 WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Federal Aviation Administration is putting the public at risk with lax oversight and a too-cozy relationship with the airlines, a top lawmaker and aviation experts said Tuesday.
The FAA has shown a dangerous lack of enforcement compliance with inspection requirements, resulting in thousands of people flying on potentially unsafe aircraft, said Rep. James Oberstar, the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
"This is the most serious lapse in aviation safety at the FAA that I've seen in 23 years," the Minnesota Democrat said in an interview with CNN, a position he restated at a news conference Tuesday.
"The result of inspection failures and enforcement failure has meant that aircraft have flown unsafe, un-airworthy and at risk of lives," he said.
Oberstar scheduled hearings to begin Thursday, after a congressional investigation uncovered that discount airline Southwest Airlines kept dozens of aircraft in the air without mandatory inspections -- and, in some cases, with defects the inspections were designed to detect."
You raise some very interesting issues - with which I entirely agree.
Let me respond to some of them.
The QF prosecution is a good example (of QF's extraordinary power) - but you can't point the finger at CASA for what has happened here. CASA referred to matter to the DPP in a very timely manner (DPP are the only ones who can prosecute offences). QF is so powerful that it can stall a prosecution of its pilots for several years to the point that they can then apply to the Supreme Court for a permanent stay on the basis of undue delay (all caused by them). But you can't blame CASA for this as it is not responsible for prosecuting the case - if you want to blame anyone you need to blame the DPP and the Tasmanian legal system for allowing QF to delay the matter year after year.
QF has breached safety regulations on numerous occasions but the CASA approach is to let QF deal with the issue itself for fear of offending QF. Not even one infringement notice issued - whereas if the same contraventions had been committed by a smaller operator CASA would have thrown the book at them. This you can blame CASA for. It is the same mentality that has led to the recent US Congressional inquiry into the FAA
But to suggest that CASA has sytematically and methodically decimated the general aviation industry is a complete exaggeration. Perhaps economics, poor management, too many particiants chasing too few dollars has a lot to do with it.
Quote:
According to the CASA Annual Report, Counsel Assisting the Coroner in the Lockhart inquest has a long and rewarding association with CASA. Whilst I accept he may be free to act in his private capacity, would not his acceptance of the appointment as Counsel Assisting be considered, ethically at least, a conflict of interest? Similarly, the consultant to that Inquest was a previous employee of both Transair and CASA, FNQ, surely a further conflict of interest?
I can't comment on this. That is really a matter for the coroner. But a perception of bias is certainly possible.
As for the regulatory reform program - I agree with you entirely. But the signifcant problem here was Minister Sharp discarding the regulatory rewrit program that was all but complete in 1996 because of pressure from various vocal sections of the industry. Since that time there has not been one government Minister with the guts to stand up and tell industry that it is the government's responsibility to regulate not industy's. Hence we have intractable never ending consulation trying to achieve consensus instead of the regulator and government doing what they should be doing ie governing and making decisions.
There was an interesting posting on the CASA website about this in 2005. It said amongst other things:
This is what gave rise to the Regulatory Structure and Validation Program (RSVP) ....... That Program was designed to restructure the existing regulations and Orders into a two-tier FAR format and numbering system. The exercise was about 90% completed when in 1996 the then newly created PAP managed to have the project disbanded. The then Minister formally dropped the RSVP project on 18 December 1996 when he advised the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances that “the draft regulations prepared for the RSVP will not be made into law”. Had the RSVP exercise been completed, I believe that many of the issues being encountered today would have been avoided.
While CASA has a large share of the blame for the failings of the regulatory reform program by its complete lack of fortitude (Byron's inane "directives" have certainly hindered the process), a large share of the criticims should also be borne by the vocal minority of bush lawyers in indstry who believe they have some expertise in the area but generally lack any understanding of regulatory development.
Thank you Clapton. You have confirmed the need for an impartial Inquiry which will on this occasion, be knobbled by the time restriction of post 2003 only.
I think it will be knobbled by the fact that so little time has been provided for the inquiry. There is insufficient time to look at any of the matters properly, let alone write a proper report - all in the space of the few days allowed for the hearing and the reporting date.
When was the board abolished?? ...........18 November 2002
The short nature of the inquiry and the period it covers makes me think it is simply to legitimise the reinstatement of a board over CASA.
TH
I think you'll find that the Board was abolished on 21 October 2003, which is the day the Civil Aviation Amendment Act 2003 received the Royal Assent - see item 19 of Schedule 1 of that Act.
"There is insufficient time to look at any of the matters properly, let alone write a proper report - all in the space of the few days allowed for the hearing and the reporting date."
God, Clapton, surely you don't think Politicians would ever give any Inquiry adequate time and broad enough terms of reference to make inquiries which will result in meaningful recommendations?
This inquiry is intended to appease The Hon Martin Ferguson AM, MP; Senator the Hon. Jan McLucas; Senator Kerry O'Brien and the "Lockhart families", with an additional hidden agenda which probably includes replacing the CASA Director; create a CASA Board as a repository for political cronies; and reel in the ATSB so it ceases criticising CASA's inefficiency.
An Aviation Taskforce chaired by Mr Allan Hawke conducted extensive inquiries last year. Their report, which I understand contained a series of recommendations, has never been released by the Minister and probably never will be, wasting something like $500,000 and a lot of people's time and efforts.
This Senate Inquiry is intended to be a Clayton's Inquiry, not permitted to addressing the the Toller years, or the reign of what was arguably Australia's worst Ministers of Transport, or the excesses of certain CASA staff, but reviewing that brief period of time since 2003 when Mr Byron ascended the throne of the Aviation Hall of Doom and Gloom!
Unless of course, there is enough industry interest and public submissions to derail the true agenda.......
It was a close race to the bottom but I think Anderson made it to the post by a good head. Truss wasn't in the job long enough to do too much damage, but he certainly demonstrated that unique Anderson training. Vaile had some ability as Trade Minister but failed to achieve anything of note in the Transport portfolio.
With Directors, I think Leroy Keith may have achieved some sanity had he not fallen foul of the then Chairman. Mick Toller wanted the profile but wasn't in touch with the systemic problems. Tell me again, who is the current Director?
I do not believe any regulator should be commercialised into an income generating machine, although certain Australian Police Forces may belie that statement! I do not believe a regulator should be managed by a Board as the legislation should be concise enough to effectively exclude the discretionary executive and non executive decision making process.
My career started in the days of DCA, under the ANO's and ANR's, a regulatory model that served Australia very well for many decades. I now think various Governments tried to fix something that wasn't broken!
Ah yes - the world's most qualified passenger. I tried to search for the posts on Scully-Power, but the PPRuNe search facility appears only to go back a year.
I still get a laugh out of the small omission that was discovered in the qualifications quoted by Anderson in the press release when Scully-Power was appointed as CASA Chairman. 'Fast jet qualified' didn't mean he was actually qualified to fly a fast jet. Oh no. He was qualified to be a passenger in a fast jet. But let's not get hung up on minor technicalities...
With Directors, I think Leroy Keith may have achieved some sanity had he not fallen foul of the then Chairman.
And that's an example of a failing with a board. There was a decent CEO in charge and the board cut him loose and took the CASA downhill. Different ideas on how to regulate and enforce?
It makes very interesting reading ... including your thread of February 2002 regarding a pilot who: "... failure(d) to record a defect on a maintenance release; .... operation of an aircraft without an endorsement; and the incorrect operation of an aircraft at Moruya Airport."
I wonder what capital punishment CASA and OLC would have imposed had that pilot been anyone other than the CASA Director, who Senator O'Brien seems to be suggesting may have been protected or defended by CASA's legal counsel and another of CASA's consultant lawyers?
Quote:
"I have concerns about the propriety of those meetings and discussions between Mr Toller, Mr Ilyk and Mr Skehill. Mr Ilyk's role at that time appears to have been one of damage control rather than ensuring that a proper and open investigation into the matter took place. He was, after all, at that time—or was shortly about to become—the senior officer responsible for investigation and enforcement of CASA's regulations, and Mr Skehill's involvement in the meetings meant that he was assisting Mr Toller to manage one of the breaches and at the same time was advising the authority about another of Mr Toller's breaches. I do not believe that Mr Skehill can credibly justify his conflict of interest in this case. So the initial response by Mr Toller, Mr Ilyk and Mr Skehill to the public disclosure of Mr Toller's breach of aviation regulations was inappropriate, to say the least.
I am advised that the Acting Assistant Director of Safety Compliance, Mr Farquharson, had similar concerns. In fact, I am given to understand that Mr Farquharson's concerns were such that he has committed them to writing. Now, if Mr Farquharson did express concerns about the relationship between Mr Toller, Mr Ilyk and Mr Skehill in relation to what has become known as the Uzu breach, either orally or in writing, the integrity of the internal inquiry into this matter must be called into question. Mr Farquharson was, after all, charged by the chairman of the board with the responsibility of ensuring that the investigation into the Uzu breach was carried out in a proper manner."
And your subsequent post in that thread:
Quote:
"The refusal does not smack of a cover up: it is itself a cover up.
If you read the material in my thread about flying training AOCs, you will see that the regulator is merely going through the pretence of consultation before announcing a decision on which its mind has already been made up."
Probably explains Mr Toller's comment to me that "It (the Uzu Air matter) should have been handled in a different manner."
I can't believe CASA, Mr Ilyk or OLC would ever be a party to a cover up! I guess that also justifies raising the question of CASA's integrity and propriety in the matter of Lockhart River?
It is indeed unfortunate the proposed Senate Inquiry is limited to 2003 to the present.
I guess that also justifies raising the question of CASA's integrity and propriety in the matter of Lockhart River?
Linear Mode
