----- you have never actually worked in aviation for a living. There are a lot people who have, but you seem disinclined to listen to any of them.
Traffic,
I really do wonder about you background, if you don't work for CASA.
Working in aviation for a living does not automatically make you an expert on aviation problems. I can assure you Dick listens to those worth listening to. He has a long and publicly documented history of seeking out those worth listening to, here and outside Australia.
As for "experts" working in the industry, many years ago, a senior office holder of a pilot union, a Regional captain, went on a tour of US/FAA, organised by Dick, to experience first hand, how well the US airspace system worked.
On return, he verbally reported:
" Yeah, it works, but I don't care how well it works, I don't care if it is safer, we are not going to do what the f*** septics* do". His written report was, as you might imagine, equally balanced, but a little less combative in the phrasing. He is also the author of the policy that
"a perception of risk" must be responded to by regulation of whatever, even when it is demonstrated that the "perceived" risk does NOT exist.
Should Dick have listened to that "industry expert"?? And the many like him.
A big part of the problem is that so many here have absolutely no experience of how aviation is conducted outside Australia, no idea that there is other than the "Australian way", all aided by the completely incorrect and wrong headed notion that Australia has a particularly good safety record, therefor what we do here must be the best.
We don't and it isn't.
It is the US that has the best air safety outcomes in every ICAO recognized category. And generally the lowest costs!!
As for the rest of your post, I am not as charitable as Dick. Do you have any idea of the number of reports and inquiries since 1988, that have all criticised the Civil Aviation Act 1988, indeed the draft bill was criticised as something cobbled up in indecent haste, and the pitfalls were pointed out, but glossed over with:
"They would never interpret it so narrowly, would they". The dreaded "they".
And the first time I saw a recommendation to harmonize with US/FAA was the Minister's Annual Report to Parliament on the operation of the Air Navigation Act in 1966.
That is a lot of years, a lot of recommendations, and we are still talking about it.
Tootle pip!!
* For those of you not into rhyming slang: Yank = septic tank = septic.