The Elephant in the room question
Sorrtry folks about to walk into work. I will return to add to and edit this, but keen to get it up.I am fully satisfied that CASA has deliberately mislead the Commonwealth Ombudsman Office in the current investigation.
If CASA is to be believed, and I point out that they have very much led what I call an alternating narrative, then I would like to ask one very simple question that requires an explanation that calls into question the ethics, the intention, the integrity and in fact the lawfulness of this matter.
Appropriate at this stage that I refer to Mr Carmody’s Statement to Parliament at the Senate Inquiry into Australia’s General Aviation Industry Friday 20th November 2020. This is more than a year after I have lost the business, due to the restrictions CASA placed on the businesses ability to trade.
“Essentially, Mr Buckley has been asked to do one thing, deliver a legal document between him and his franchisees or his subordinates or whatever he calls them that clearly outlines who has the safety responsibility and supervisory responsibility. Put it in a legally binding document that we will accept, and we would be comfortable with the business model”.
That legally document that clearly outline “safety and supervisory responsibility” already existed, and Mr Carmody would have been fully aware of that and had access to it. It is called the Exposition.
The very same Exposition that CASA designed with me over a two-year period, fully approved in April 2017, and fully audited in November 2018, and raised no concerns at all about. That is the only industry document that contains that information. The exposition clearly outlined safety and supervisory responsibility. Part of it is attached. It is only a small component of our manual suite, but the pertinent section at this stage.
If CASA had a new and additional requirement to be involved in the commercial contracts between entities that had never previously been applied to other Operators surely it was incumbent on CASA to provide clear and concise direction to me on what they required in the contracts.
There can be absolutely no doubt that I would put anything that CASA required into the commercial contracts. Admittedly it seemed bizarre, as these matters would normally be attended to in the Exposition that all staff comply with. However, as an industry first, CASA had chosen my organisation to involve themselves in the commercial contracts.
The significance of this is:
Quite simply, if CASA had come into my office and said, “Glen, we would like to work with the wording on your commercial contracts”.
They would have been met with a coffee and a biscuit, they could have sat down with me and my team. That would include myself as the Group CEO, my Group Head of Operations (HOO), my Group Safety Manager, my Internal Co-ordinator, and my Technical Writer. We would have embedded the wording exactly as CASA required.
The entire matter could have been completely avoided, CASA would have walked out of my office hours later full of caffeine and sugar, and fully satisfied with the content of the contracts. They would have been finalised, signed by all Members, and held on file by CASA.
Truly. If CASAs story is to be believed. Surely the question is.
How did we get to a situation where businesses have been closed down, peoples livelihoods have been decimated, employees have been left unemployed and unpaid, I have been bankrupted, suppliers have been unapid, students have been impacted?
The entire matter could have been avoided without CASA even sending that initial notification.
You understand, why I very much question the intent.