17/10/23
To the CASA CEO and Board,
Please accept my third piece of correspondence arising from the action items of our meeting. I will attend to items 3 and 4 being;
- Item 3; Both Mark and I stressed that if you have any direct evidence that specifically contradicts the Ombudsman’s findings, then this should be provided to it. I offered to contact the Ombudsman to request it review any such material. and,
- Item 4. Mark agreed CASA would explore whether APTA’s exposition alone sufficiently set out the type of arrangements that would have allowed it to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements.
Regarding this correspondence on Item 3, I will be brief, other than to say there has been substantial disinformation that has emanated from CASA, and at the most senior levels within CASA and specifically at the Executive Management level, being levels that are directly below, but report directly to the CEO. On these matters I need to correspond initially with the Ombudsman's Office, and request that they clarify some matters that I do not understand. Once the Ombudsman has explained those matters that I do not understand then I will be able to proceed. That may require FOI requests etc., and will most likely be a protracted process, perhaps extending over many months.
In this correspondence, may I respectfully request that you do establish contact with the Ombudsman to advise that I do intend to provide evidence that contradicts the Ombudsman findings. This will be by way of statements and ex CASA employees who have offered to come forward and tell the truth on this matter. I completely understand that the Ombudsman's Office has advised me that they do not believe that they have been misled. My experience with the Ombudsman's Office replicates the deficiencies highlighted in the Robodebt inquiry of the Ombudsman Office., and relate very much to the inability to determine when that office is being mislead, lack of supporting evidence requirements in support of Agency claims, a reliance on advice from Agencies, assumption that Agency representatives are acting in good faith, etc etc.
I obviously do not expect CASA to present my opinions but I do feel that CASA should now re-establish contact with the Ombudsman's Office to let them know that the Board and CEO have been advised by me that I intend to pursue the matter, and that Mr. Buckley is firmly of the opinion that the Ombudsman Office has been deliberately mislead by CASA which has lead to gross technical errors, and that can easily be demonstrated.
By that process of CASA establishing contact with the Ombudsman, it effectively reaffirms that CASA is maintaining its position, so I would ask that you do establish contact with the Ombudsman, if the contents of our meeting have not changed CASAs position especially regard to how common my structure was, and always had been, and importantly, approved by CASA.
Your gesture is not "lost on me", and I appreciate it. The Ombudsman is obviously resistant to consider that their Office has been misled. An approach by you, from your office would carry significant "weight" and I thank you for that gesture.
Regarding action item 4.
"CASA would explore whether APTA’s exposition alone sufficiently set out the type of arrangements that would have allowed it to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements.
I understand that CASA has presented to the Ombudsman Office that there was not an awareness of my structure within CASA and that CASA had never permitted the structure throughout the industry.
You are fully aware that I maintain that CASA had always formally approved, and in fact supported that identical structure, not only with my Organization but countless other flight training organizations around Australia and continues to do so.
For this argument let me give "CASA" the benefit of the doubt and assume that CASA was not aware of the structure.
There can be no doubt that I knew of the structure. I was the individual investing everything I had into this venture, and it was the very purpose of the Business. I was very clear on the structure in my mind and was since I commenced operations in 2006.
My management team of Key Personnel must have been fully aware of the structure, as they were the personnel with legislated responsibility and accountability for the operation in its entirety, and they were overseeing it on a daily basis and had done so for the decade that we operated with this structure. They were interviewed, tested and approved for each of their respective roles by CASA against the very structure that they were operating under.
In turn it follows that all Personnel would have been fully aware of the structure, in fact it would be impossible to operate if they were not, As all Personnel were inducted into the one system, they would have been aware.
In turn it follows that all of the students and customers knew because they had also been inducted into the structure that I had utilized for the decade prior.
It is likely that the CASA team being CMT 2 that had provided oversight of my organization for a decade, including hundreds of face to face meetings at our premises and in CASAs, audits, manual amendments, attending our group safety meetings and group management meetings was fully aware of the structure. If not that would be somewhat remiss of those personnel, after all that is their very job. It must be noted that I believe they were fully aware, practically they had to be, and I'm sure if you ask them they would be truthful with you. Consider also that it was CMT 2 that worked with me over several years, assessing every single page of many thousands of pages that formed our CASA approved Exposition.
I had a reasonable expectation that my CMT had communicated the structure through to the relevant departments within CASA on multiple occasions. I had completely done my job and followed all CASA procedures. There was nothing else that I could possibly have done throughout the decade to make CASA become more fully aware.
During 2015,2016, and 2017 I invested hundreds of thousands of dollars revalidating my existing structure to the new Part 141 and 142 legislation. This three year project involved me working side by side with 10 CASA personnel as I attended to over 600 CASA stipulated requirements. CASA then conducted an internal peer review and fully revalidated to the new legislation in April of 2017.
The very purpose of that process during that 3 year revalidation was to assess me against all legislated requirements as CASA did.
The media were writing about it etc. The point being that it was "widely known" the structure that I utilised.
As I stated at the meeting it's like bumping into Ronald McDonald at a Party and acting surprised when he tells you he makes Hamburgers.
Nevertheless, let's still assume CASA was not aware of the structure. It's almost irrelevant because everyone else knew what was going on, including the CASA personnel that I was dealing with on a daily basis. While obviously it's not my responsibility to personally notify every CASA employee, I have a reasonable assumption that during the decade, CASA has its own internal procedures to achieve these tasks.
The point of this is that there were never any deficiencies of any sort ever identified to me. This was purely a matter of wording in the contract. The cost to me to implement any change was zero dollars. There was no requirement to change anything at all about how we operated, and that is why it is so inexplicable that the entire matter could not be resolved by me, in a matter of hours. I simply needed to pursue one of the options put forward to me by CASA, and that was that if I made everyone my direct employee, the matter would be fully resolved.
There were no deficiencies against any quality outcomes at all, and all legislation was attended to..
Your offer to explore if ,
"APTA’s exposition alone sufficiently set out the type of arrangements that would have allowed it to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements, " is very significant because APTA did attend to all regulatory requirements, every single one of them.
I know that because under Freedom of Information I obtained the checklist that CASA personnel used to assess me against those very criteria leading to revalidation for the new legislation. Behind that 15 page assessment checklist leading to my revalidation in April of 2017, being 18 months before "CASA first became fully aware" was a very major project, and those pages alone do not give the project the recognition as to its true scope. It was an enormous project and everything was attended to.
That checklist that I obtained under FOI, contains the CASA requirements of me. In your short investigation, it would be of enormous benefit if somebody could identify against that checklist which procedure was found to be deficient if any. I suggest that a checklist would be an ideal starting point., to assess all criteria.
Please note that we also had a single team of Key Personnel and their legislated responsibilities can be found in the CASRs. I draw your attention to all specified responsibilities of the Key Personnel, and recall that there was only ever one AOC, and one set of Key personnel, and one set of APTA procedures. The responsibilities and accountabilities of the Key personnel who were required to undergo a CASA assessment, based on the very structure that we operated under.
CASR 142.180 CEO responsibilities and accountabilities\
CASR 142. 190 CEO responsibilities
CASR 142.200 Safety Manager Responsibilities.
The Ombudsman report constantly refers to the Other entities authorisations, when in fact none of the entities held any CASA Authorisations. A gross misunderstanding within the Ombudsman's office. CASA would be fully aware that there were no other CASA approved authorizations held by any of the other Entities, yet chooses not to correct this gross misunderstanding. There was only one set of Approvals as CASA would be fully aware, after all it is CASA that issues them.
You will notice that at no stage has CASA ever identified any deficiencies. If any deficiencies had been identified surely CASA would have been calling for changes to my Exposition, as they should have.
The final determination by CASA was that we could not continue delivering Part 142 Operations, which removed access to over 90% of the businesses revenue, and that all personnel operating under the AOC were to become Employees.
In closing, I thank you for investigating whether or not
APTA’s exposition alone sufficiently set out the type of arrangements that would have allowed it to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements.
Until this point in time, CASA has never identified to me any deficiencies, any regulations that were not attended to in our Exposition. This was not a quality control issue. It was a requirement that all personnel operating under the AOC, because that was supposedly a requirement in order to be able to maintain Operational Control.
I might use this opportunity to address a significant matter that, incredulously, the Ombudsman didn't even attend to, and that was the requirements that CASA follow its own procedures when it cancels, varies or suspends an AOC as specified in CASAs own manuals, and had CASA adhered to those procedures, this matter would not have become so confusing. Not only would it have afforded me procedural fairness, and potentially made the entire process lawful, it would have given me a document that clearly identifies what it is that I did wrong.
My best understanding is that CASA never identified any deficiencies at all aganist any legislation, this has been an "assumption" on behalf of the Ombudsman that has been "created" in the office of the Ombudsman. I effectively feel that you are going on a "goose chase", because there are no deficiencies. Irrespective of that, a response to your short investigation may highlight a deficiency that I had not previously been advised of.
I am fully aware that CASA has created an impression of a deficiency against the legislation although none has ever been identified to me. If there are any deficiencies I would be very appreciative of CASA highlighting those deficiencies, as it is something that i have been consistently calling upon CASA to provide for 5 years.
To clarify, I do not believe that there were ever any deficiencies identified and if they were those deficiencies were never identified to me.
Thankyou for your efforts, respectfully
Glen Buckley