Finalised and sent
I will remove previous drafts. This has been sent to the recipients indicated in the letter, with the exception of the ABC who i will contact tomorrow. Cheers All.
Only minor changes based on feedback here. i.e. repositioning the considerations to weight them accordingly.
Ombudsman Investigation ref 2019-713834-R
Dear Ms Pip Spence, CEO of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), and other included recipients, including but not limited to:
The CASA Board, The Ombudsman’s Office, Ms Carina Garland MP for Chisholm, Senator Glenn Sterle, and the ABC.
As you are fully aware in your role as the CASA CEO, I have alleged that CASA has deliberately provided false and misleading information to the current Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office investigation into the closure of my business by CASA.
I note that you have previously advised that you are reluctant to “interfere” in the Ombudsman investigation. By having a reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of information provided by CASA, and choosing not to act, you are in fact choosing to interfere in the outcome, by being complicit in the provision of false and misleading information.
The false and misleading information has been provided by CASA on multiple occasions, over a protracted period, and on several different, but each very significant issues.
The person providing that information would be fully aware, that the information that was being provided to the Commonwealth Ombudsman investigation was both false, and misleading. For complete clarity, there were multiple considered and deliberate decisions to provide substantively false and misleading information.
The substantively false and misleading information was provided by CASA to pervert the outcome of the inquiry. I am fully satisfied that the information is so false and misleading in nature yet so fundamental to the entire matter, that it can only have been provided to pervert the outcome of that inquiry.
The person responsible for providing that false and misleading information to the Commonwealth Ombudsman investigation was, the CASA Executive Manager of Legal, International and Regulatory Affairs, Mr Jonathan Aleck acting in his role as the sole representative of CASA in communications with the Ombudsman’s Office as the “Agency” representative of CASA.
I am advised by the Ombudsman’s Office that by convention they only engage with one representative of the “Agency” i.e., Mr Aleck in this particular case.
It is important, going forward that I ascertain if Mr Aleck is acting alone in his decision making to provide false and misleading information to the Ombudsman’s investigation or is this in fact a broader, “CASA” decision, coming from higher up within CASA, and specifically the Office of the CASA CEO. As Mr Aleck is CASAs longest serving and second most senior Executive, the only positions higher in the direct reporting line is your Office, being the Office of the CASA CEO, noting that the CASA Board is my next option.
Therefore, I am seeking clarity on the position of “CASA” on this single matter. There are a number of issues that CASA has provided false and misleading information on.
Specifically, in this correspondence, I am addressing the false and misleading advice provided to the Ombudsman, regarding as to when CASA “first became fully aware of the specific nature of my operation”.
This is the operation that CASA closed because it was unlawful, only to find out much later from the Ombudsman investigation that in fact, it was not unlawful. CASA had no legal or valid basis to close my business. That is my position on this matter. None!
CASA have led the Ombudsman to believe that it was just prior to October 2018 when they notified me that I was operating unlawfully and closed my business of a decade, that Mr Aleck claims CASA, “first became fully aware of the nature of my business.”
I claim that it was almost a decade earlier, which is why this entire matter, and all the associated harm is so inexplicable, and so concerning.
A description of the nature of that operation follows. I need to be crystal clear however on this matter.
Mr Aleck has maintained to the Ombudsman that CASA never permitted the exact structure that I am about to describe, throughout the flight training industry.
Mr Aleck has maintained to the Ombudsman that CASA was not fully aware that I had adopted that structure,
I need to be blunt. Mr Aleck is blatantly lying to the Ombudsman’s office. He is deliberately providing false and misleading information, and substantially so.
CASA always, and on every occasion permitted this exact structure throughout the flight training industry for at least the 30 years that I was involved in it.
Glen Buckley’s business was the only one, ever in Australia that was declared unlawful by CASA.
CASA was fully aware of the exact and specific nature of every aspect of my operation throughout the decade that CASA approved it to operate.
It is simply not reasonable, it is deceptive, and it is false and misleading for Mr Aleck and/or the CASA CEO to falsely represent to the Commonwealth Ombudsman investigation that CASA was not fully aware of the exact nature of my operation for many years prior to Mr Alecks asserted date of October 2018.
The structure that Mr Aleck falsely claims CASA never permitted is:
· Only one CASA issued Air Operator Certificate (AOC) being issued to Entity A. Entity A operates a flying school under that AOC.
· Entity B approaches Entity A being the one and only AOC Holder. Entity B does not hold an AOC or CASA approval to deliver flying training in its own right. Entity B would typically be a rural voluntary run aero club with a committee. It has a building, aircraft, instructors, a refuelling facility etc, but no approval. It is primarily a social club.
· Entity B does not have a CASA issued AOC. Entity B does not have an Operations Manual, or syllabi of training, a Safety department, or the CASA required 3 X Key Personnel i.e. Head of Operations, CEO, or Safety Manager. Entity B has no involvement with CASA because quite simply it is a social aero club run by aviation enthusiasts who are not flying instructors and it is not a flying school.
· Entity B, approaches Entity A and enters into an arrangement whereby Entity A uses the only AOC being its own, to deliver flight training at Entity Bs location using Entity B facilities i.e. building, aircraft, flying instructors, refuelling and maintenance, after they are fully inducted into Entity A,
· After an application is made to CASA and CASA makes a formal fee for service assessment, they would formally approve that arrangement whereby Entity A delivered flight training at the Entity B location, with Entity A being the one and only AOC Holder taking on responsibility for all operations at both locations, with Entity B fully inducted into Entity A systems and procedures.
· As legislated the legislated Key Personnel from Entity A who hold all legislated responsibility for that operation are employed by me, and I hold the single CASA issued Authorisation. All responsibility in law for all operations rests completely with me, as the AOC Holder and my Key Personnel.
Considering that CASA had always permitted that structure, Mr Aleck/CASA has deceptively led the Ombudsman to be of the view that, CASA never permitted it, and that CASA did not know I had adopted it for many years with full and formal CASA approval.
Following is an italicised text, it is a direct quote from the Ombudsman’s written correspondence to me. The Ombudsman’s preliminary finding has obviously been perverted by Mr Alecks falsehoods.
“CASA was not fully aware of the specific nature of APTA’s operations until just prior to issuing the notice in October 2018,”
A subsequent telephone call with the Ombudsman’s office confirmed my concerns and has left no doubt in my mind that CASA had provided false and misleading information.
For Mr Aleck to lead the Ombudsman investigation to believe that “CASA” was not fully aware of the specific nature of APTAs operations until just prior to October 2018, is clearly false and misleading, and grossly so.
Importantly, it is easily proven to be false, and misleading.
There is so much irrefutable evidence to demonstrate the level of deception being perpetrated by CASA on multiple topics, but for pure simplicity, let me just attend to this one single topic in this correspondence as to “when” CASA first became fully aware of the specific nature of my operations.
Consideration One- CASAs own Industry Complaints Commissioner findings demonstrate that CASA is misleading the Ombudsman as to when CASA first became fully aware of the nature of my operation.
CASAs own Industry Complaints Commissioner (ICC) on 12/04/19 found that
“I don’t consider CASA treated APTA fairly when its approach changed on 23 October. That’s because collectively as an organisation, CASA had an awareness of the APTA business model for a significant period of time prior to its compliance with regulation being called into question. In changing its position so drastically, the circumstances were such that CASA’s actions weren’t fair, given APTA’s likely to have relied on CASA’s failure to highlight any concerns when conducting its operations and planning.”
So CASAs own Industry Complaints Commissioner finds that CASA knew for a “significant time prior” to 23rd October 2018, yet later Mr Aleck leads the Ombudsman to be of the view that CASA became fully aware “just prior to October 2018”.
Whilst the ICC did not specify what a “significant period of time” is, one would assume it is at least six years when CASA formally approved the first base in Darwin.
What concerns me most here is that CASAs own Industry Complaints Commissioner finds that CASA knew of the specific nature of my operation for a “significant period of time prior”, and my expectation is that that would be the official position of CASA, yet CASA leads the Ombudsman to be of the view that CASA only became fully aware of the specific nature “just prior to October 2018”.
How could two completely contradicting narratives be emanating from the same organisation i.e., CASA
There is only one correct and truthful answer, as you will be aware. Either CASA became fully aware of the specific nature of my operation in October 2018, OR CASA first became fully aware of the specific nature of my operation many years earlier.
It is concerning to me that CASAs own ICC would make such a fundamental finding that effectively CASA “led me up the garden path” and then closed me down, and that would not initiate some internal process of review, and most especially in the nations “safety” regulator.
Surely the contradicting narratives from two different CASA departments is evidence enough of the deceit being propagated.