Quoting Sunfish:- “What concerns me is that CASA has probably said: "So tell us how you want the Act changed?" and then AOPA takes the bait.”
I heard that AOPA considers that they are “inside the tent.” My rejoinder was that Minister McCormack should approaching us to be inside our tent. In other words they would have the suggested wording for the amendment to the Act in their pocket for our approval along with the commitment to proceed with FAR/ NZ rules.
Regarding amendment wording, if memory serves, the suggested wording has had legal input already. If it was legislated it would go through the normal procedures and be vetted by senior Commonwealth legal officers. Would we trust them to do the job? If the Minister is pursuing reform in good faith we would hope so. The proviso being that the whole of CGI, Canberra (now pop. 403,000) Government Industries, is heavily dependent on taxing us in many more ways than just money. It has a vested interest in maintaining maximum power, axiomatically depriving us of our freedoms and reducing National prosperity.
Times have changed, once we had a Public Service, now they often call themselves the Public Sector and act in many ways like a competitor to private enterprise, fee gouging as one example. Much of the government today is performed by an informal conglomerate of very high salary independent Commonwealth corporate bodies, Commissioners and Ombudsmen, all in including Departments said to be 1200 in total. Naturally they all serve each other to some extent, probably by instinctive self preservation (aggrandisement?) more than by design. Employment is fluid between them. The perceived collaboration of the newly independent ATSB (2009) with CASA over the botched Rex/PelAir ditching investigation is a case in point.
Back to a previous discussion (Eyrie thank you) in regard to Mr. Carmody’s AVMED reforms; i.e. to date that they were nil. Thinking again this may well be true looking at the advice to DAMEs where the ‘92 Advisory of DAME insurance indemnity cover by CASA seems contradicted by the latest advice to the DAMEs. Therefore medical reform remains to be seen.
My latest Class 2 has just been issued weeks past my DAME granted two month grace period. No explanation or apology for the delay, a careless omission which I will take to my MP for redress. If we don’t employ our representatives like this they cannot serve us properly.