Counter Rotation,
Whilst I am directly involved with the processing and issuing of ASICs, it is a job I could well do without. It is time consuming and seems to achieve very little in the grand scheme of things. All this has done is penalise law abiding pilots and funded a very hungry monster in Canberra called DOTARS.
I know of one particular instance where a guy came to Australia on holiday, hired an aircraft and flew off into the never never without so much as one person checking his ASIC. By the time he got to my airport, the horse had well and truly bolted so all I could do was call DOTARS and advise what had happened and what I intended to do about it. That was, to restrict his access to non RPT operational periods and get him the f*&k out of there as soon as possible. Don't know how he got on at the myriad of other so called security controlled airports he visited. But wasn't my problem then. I could have been a real pr1ck and denied him access airside totally and called the operator to come and recover their aircraft.
Highlights a serious point though in that many of us have endured a lot of hardship and in some cases lost tens even hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost turnover due to the inability of the governmet to process ASICs in a timely manner for overseas pilots. Then one clown comes along, pleads ignorance and no one batts an eyelid.
Even CASA f*&ked it up when a guy was waiting for his ASIC they told him to contact the airport concerned and ask to be issued a Visitors Identification Card (VIC). "Wrong answer a$$hole" A VIC is only for airside use by persons having to work there and MUST BE SUPERVISED at all times by an ASIC holder. If anyone can tell me how said VIC could be supervised, once he gets back in his aircraft, closes the doors and starts up, I'm all ears.
So we now have the regulator giving advice contrary to the legislation of DOTARS.
Unfortunately, you will not change DOTARS and therefore the current government's minds and make them see that the current system is expensive and unnecessary. There are a lot of senior puplic servants and a few Sir Humphreys who's livelihoods depend on our continuing to fork out money hand over fist. At the risk of sounding defeatist, as long as they have the general public duped into believing that the right thing is being done and the sky is safer because of ASICS, we probaby have little chance of seeing any change soon. Forget the current minister, he's probably already looking at cleaning out his desk. We need to focus on the other mob.