Horatio regretfully this General Aviation Advisory Group appears to me to have the very high potential of being no more than a side show distraction. Here's why:
- The Group will generally meet twice each year but can meet on other occasions if agreed by the Chair. (but no more than four times a year)
- The Group will review its operations after two years to determine whether it is operating effectively and whether it is appropriate for it to continue its work.
- The members of the Group are to meet their own costs of attendance and participation (Canberra venue! - teleconferencing support offered).
- The chair determines what may be permissible as an agenda item
The depth of discussion needed to re-energise the GA sector is truly enormous and providing members with as little as two weeks notice of an agenda item is hardly likely to lead to any meaningful contributions.
That said, in conjunction with this paragraph's concluding sentence, the advisory group members should be lobbied so they put forward agenda items which industry participants wish to have addressed. The meeting agenda items should be made public before or after each meeting so that a level of accountability and transparency is introduced. The minister should be lobbied to introduce the need for a final or two year report and this should be a public document. For mine, unless the structure of a process such as this is corrected along these lines, I don't feel it is going to be effective and will quite likely drag industry participants away from lobbying in more effective ways or via more proactive public figures.