Another sad day for aviation in Australia.
(I cannot help but laugh when I note references in the judgment to “Standard Form Recommendations” (SFRs). I invented the “Standard Form Recommendation” in CASA in 1998, as a piss-take!
I had a bunch of highly paid and intelligent direct-report managers who seemed to need guidance on how to get someone to make a thing called a ‘decision’. I thought: Yer kidding me?
So I spent 12 minutes inventing a form. I called it: “The Standard Form Recommendation”. It required ‘complex’ stuff like an explanation of what decision was being sought, and why, supporting evidence and draft documents to give effect to the decision, if the delegate accepted the recommendation. I thought it would be a not-so-gentle hint that would embarrass the managers into using their own brains and initiative to get to the desired outcome.
But no: There are SFRs referenced, over 20 years later, in a Federal Court judgment about a CASA decision!
I (continue to) despair.
In another life I invented the “Very Poor Form Form”, in an attempt to get people to understand that just because someone’s ‘pet idea’ is encapsulated in a grandiose looking form with impressive legal language, does not turn the Form into binding gospel. This time around I’ll claim breach of my moral rights if I see it referenced, without the user having attributed my authorship, in a Federal Court judgment.)