“ When will the madness end?”
The short answer is it won’t end until and unless there’s political willpower to recognise the abject failure of the governance model.
That is the creation of an independent Commonwealth corporation to oversee and administer our civil aviation. A make work salary factory that has in reality a primary responsibility to itself.
It was 1988 when Labor Minister Gareth Evans decided to rid himself of direct responsibility for aviation with the predictable consequences we see writ large today.
The action completely disregarded a fundamental principle of the Westminster system, that is that responsibility lies with a Minister for the various arms of government administration. Unfortunately not one Minister or government of either stripe has had the intestinal fortitude to correct this wasteful and industry debilitating situation.
Much as we love to blame our MPs, few bother to actually engage with our elected representatives, and this is our responsibility if we want our democracy to improve.