Originally Posted by
jonkster
My 2c FWIW
I do not think any reform can happen by just trying to focus on targeting, convincing (or gaining the favour) of politicians.
Politicians of all sides do not want to take risks that may cost them power unless they either really believe the policy is critically important or they believe the risk to their political career is small.
It isn't personal. It isn't fair or the best way to achieve good outcomes but it's politics and that is what we have to deal with.
The only way I can see politicians supporting meaningful reform is if they can see that the "money over safety" tactic can be convincingly countered, so the public (in the main) won't swallow it. Do that and we will be far more likely to get politicians on board.
I think we need a more educated public. I really doubt politicians will lead here - it can only come from GA itself.
The more the average (non-aviation) person sees GA as being something that benefits the community and that can be regulated and fostered in a better way, the more chance we have of getting politicians on board. Most people are not fools, most simply do not know the issues and so are easy targets for spinning simplistic criticisms like "safety must be the only priority, irrespective of costs".
Perhaps the efforts and resources of groups like AOPA (and GA identities with a high public profile), should be aimed at gaining a higher public profile for GA, highlighting how it benefits the community, how it is under stress and how like all transport issues (not just aviation), in the interests of practicality and general benefit, we must always end up balancing safety against cost. Where that balance point lies is what is important, not that such a balance must be made.
However it is done I think it should avoid making it easy to criticise as simply being a "money over safety" push but looks realistically at risk and benefits. (The old "affordable safety" slogan whilst accurate was too easy to misunderstand on initial hearing - it sounds scary to an uninformed public - eg imagine how people would react to a news story about a new end of life health policy called "affordable palliative care" - it may well be compassionate and give better care but people will never get that far and reject it on first hearing - it sounds like a cost cutting policy not a better outcome policy).
I would not frame it as "cost versus safety" but more as "safety, sustainability and utility" (or something along those lines). After all that is what I want from GA.
You couldn't have said it better jonkster,
Until the average everyday punter who doesn't know an A380 from a C172 has a reason to care about it GA simply doesn't have the numbers to make any political headway. ALL the AOPA summit attendees combined represented 26,000 members - just over half of the wagga wagga electorates voting age population or 0.162% of all voters in the country- a drop in the ocean politically.
What does the average punter care about then....consumer goods availability, healthcare, public safety, reliability of services, investment in "my" region. These are the areas needing to be addressed.
I have long advocated for (since I don't have the finances to start it myself) a simple campaign to highlight GA benefits to these areas - stickers placed on every box shipped by a light aircraft "without a light aircraft this box would not have reached you", every idle pilot waiting for passengers at a regional town delivering a pamphlet and some info on who the brought to town to the local chamber of commerce etc. Making sure every person in every town knows that their doctors, pathology samples, mobile phone services (technicians) etc arrive on a light aircraft. All with links to a petition/webpage. If every operator and owner chipped in to cover the cost of the stickers/pamphlets/time the cost per operator would be minimal but we could begin to garner public interest in the GA sector and its survival. You would need a catchy phrase, think "without trucks, australia stops" campaign. And ditch the term GA! Use something the NON-FLYING public understands "light aircraft operator"? the trucking industry did not use "without road freight, australia stops" for good reason.
It would only take a month or so of this type campaign before GA would begin to get noticed politically, simply because we would then be making political inroads toward the MAJORITY of people in each electorate.
Between us jonkster and I have already coughed up 4 cents toward this idea - if someone is willing to co-ordinate this I will pitch in another $50 of my hard earned. And if all the people represented by the combined orgs at the summit did this we would have a 1.3million dollar campaign - that will buy a LOT of stickers.
Progressive.