I received a PM addressed to ‘Clinton’, in which ‘Dick Smith’ asked for information about my statement about the admission of the illegality the ‘G’ trial.
From pages 6 & 7 of the Hansard of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee hearing of 1 May 2000, copy here:
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/s967.pdf
Senator O’BRIEN— … There are a couple of questions that I have stemming from points that you made. If I understood you correctly, it has now been clearly established that it is Airservices and not CASA who have the responsibility of designing and implementing new air space arrangements. Is that correct?
Mr [Bernie] Smith [Chief Operating Officer, Airservices Australia]—No, Senator. The responsibility is Airservices. CASA have the responsibility to assess the safety.
Senator O’BRIEN—Airservices, not CASA, have that responsibility?
Mr Smith—Yes, correct.
Senator O’BRIEN—And that is consistent with the advice that Airservices had some time ago during the G class air space trial.
Mr Smith—I am not sure what advice you are referring to.
Senator O’BRIEN—It was the advice that we received from Mr Pollard on 1 December last year regarding that situation in estimates on 1 December. I do not have a page reference. In any case, we have cleared that up. It has therefore been established that CASA had no legal basis to run the G class trial, but it went ahead and did that because Airservices was busy with the TAAAT system implementation. Is that correct?
Mr Smith—Airservices had, at that time, taken a decision that to try and run an air space reform program, or to initiate such a program, whilst introducing such a large and complex system was not in the best interests of the industry.
[bolding added]
The dissembling and obfuscating responses in the earlier 1 December 1999 hearing had put the writing on the wall (see pages 91 onwards):
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/s2803.pdf
As I said on this forum in earlier threads: CASA (driven by different Mr Smiths) did the equivalent of planting road signs it had no authority to plant. CASA purported to exercise powers it did not have.