"The public whom travel by aircraft be it scheduled airlines, ad-hoc charter, air ambulance, charity flights, joy flights, are only interested in one thing - Safety !"
Office I don't think this statement is entirely correct, I would have said price interests the average punter far more than safety, as illustrated by the number who happily jump on foreign administered low cost carriers for their yearly sabbatical to Bali. Safety becomes an issue in Joe publics mind after the event not before.
Flying training is no different.
In UK some years ago, Virgin I think it was, were offering packages to Florida to learn to fly as the one size fits all EASA rules drove most flying schools out of business in Europe.
It's around half the cost in the US to learn to fly than here.I imagine the same would be true for other countries with sensible regulations such as NZ or Canada. The influx of foreign students I would suggest is more about a residency Visa than a flying licence, the Chinese brigade don't count because by and large they don't train to Australian rules they just use our airspace.
There has been US schools promoting here, even including the conversion costs from a US licence to an Australian one.
"In general, licenced pilot's, from PPL through to ATPL, by and large are not really affected by this thread."
I believe this statement is also not entirely correct, what CAsA is doing indirectly or directly affects everyone in aviation in this country from the top down and Australia is poorer for it.
"Any aspiring AOC holder for whatever function is NOT going to join into this argument - they will be penalised by CASA if their identity becomes known. Any existing AOC holder will be very careful for the same reason. CASA retribution!"
Finally we agree. I believe CAsA is corrupt and incompetent and I believe that is the thing that irks Australian's more than anything. We hear often of "A fair go", the problem is communicating that to Joe public who has very little understanding of how aviation works, they hear CAsA spin, with very little opposing argument.
The media seems ambivalent to aviations plight, there are far more sensational issues to report, social media is really the only way to get an issue out there.
There was an old Frank Sinatra song about a Ram and a Dam, keep butting and eventually the dam would collapse.
Whats the old adage?.. "when a few good men do nothing".