Long-time experienced and widely-respected GA industry members support my view and have done so with many examples of Mr Ilyk's role.
Well I hope you and those industry members have given the Senate Committee some cold, hard, first-hand evidence as to what ‘role’ Mr Ilyk played in ‘the problem’. My first-hand experience is that ‘long-time experienced and widely-respected GA industry members’ often provide only half the story and
never know the
whole story.
As to the ‘payments issues’, if that’s a reference to the practice of some AOC holders to charge pilots to fly for them, I am not aware of any civil aviation law that says AOC holders must pay their pilots. The ‘financial position’ of an applicant for an AOC is a matter that CASA can take into consideration in reaching the requisite satisfaction under section 28 of the Civil Aviation Act. But it’s quite possible for an AOC applicant to be financially viable, notwithstanding it charges pilots to fly for it. Indeed, it might have been a lucrative source income for some operators, prior to the shift in market forces relating to pilot resources. (The practice struck me as speaking volumes about the character of both parties to the transaction, but that’s a different issue.)
Having said all of that, it will be very interesting if a law gets passed, the effect of which is that CASA could suspend or cancel the AOC of any operator who does not pay all its staff at or above the relevant award - some fairly complicated constitutional and enforcement issues would arise. (It will be
extraordinarily interesting if CASA tried doing it now, without any change to the legislation.)