CASA unable to Regulate

[PLovett]

bilbert and Niles Crane

With legislation the only thing Parliament will normally vote on is changes to an Act of Parliament. In aviation that means the Civil Aviation Act.

Regulations and amendments to them are formulated by the controlling authority as named in the specific Act. The Civil Aviation Act gives CASA the power to formulate regulation in accordance with the Act. The actual regulation or amendment to one is drafted by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Counsel's Office, a sort of legal advice and drafting office for the Parliament, but on instructions from CASA. CASA tells the PCO want it wants to achieve and then the PCO tries to draft something that will achieve that aim.

A new regulation or amendment to one is then tabled in Parliament for a number of sitting days (I forget now just how many) and if in that time no Member of Parliament wants to question or debate the new regulation then it will pass into law. The vast majority of regulations are never debated by Parliament.

Now under our administrative law system decisions by administrative bodies, such as CASA, are subject to review by the court system. If this were not the case you would get a dictatorial system totally out of control and unanswerable.

That is what has happend in this case, a court has said that CASA has got the law wrong or has misapplied its powers. There is nothing in that that says CASA is unable to regulate just that if it wants to then it must do it according to the law. To say it is anything more is mere hyperbole.