Another side to the story
Frank sorry to hear you have had so much trouble with CASA but I feel compelled to share one other side of the story.
By way of background I've been in the Oz GA industry as a commercial pilot since 1979, in numerous roles from instructor to chief pilot. Not as long as yourself but over 30 years none the less. I've established my own charter business operating multiple twins, written a few ops manuals for myself and others etc. I have never worked for the regulator.
CASA and its predecessors like any organisation is not without its faults but... it has been my experience that CASA performs its role reasonably well given the circumstances. I have had a number of FOI’s over the years, interactions with various others and I have at all times found the individuals I have dealt with to be dedicated professionals there to help.
In the 80's when as a young pilot I wanted to establish a charter business, quite a few at my local airport (a secondary control zone) told me I was nuts and that they were all bastards and I'd never get one. Quite disheartened and almost persuaded I was wasting my time I made an appointment and went into Lonsdale St to meet with the Dept Aviation Flying Operations Manager. I had one question... Everyone tells me you guys probably won't give me a charter license and are hard to deal with, am I wasting my time applying and what does one have to do to make do this successfully?
His reply surprised me. He told me coming to see him first was a good start, going on to explain that in his time he couldn't remember anyone doing that up front. He then spent a terrific hour with me. I talked about what I wanted to do and he explaining how to go about it properly and where applicants mostly go wrong. The essence of the conversation was that they found it challenging that so many people simply copy an existing ops manual, see applying for a charter license as a paperwork process, then get up and running and exist in an environment where cutting corners is the norm and safety often compromised. "All" they wanted... were people to be professional and take safety seriously.
With that I wrote my own ops manual tailored to "my" operation, wrote my first business plan ever, taught myself how to identify up front areas where safety could easily be compromised and wrote a handful of procedures that would prevent that up front.
The department gave me my charter license with strong support. My Chief Pilot interview was great - being young I was far from perfect but the interviewer could not have been more pleasant and helpful. Every annual inspection was a good experience. I use to look forward to meeting with my various FOI's. Like all of us I had non-conformances and things they wanted fixed but that's "not" a bag thing, it's the purpose of the inspection. I viewed NC's as a good thing and would eagerly action them as part of a continuous improvement process (not that I knew that was the name of what we were doing at the time). I use to look forward to an hour or so with my FOI after the inspection shooting the breeze and dumping a pile of questions I'd accumulate between inspections.
We operated for several years without incident and during that time I was amazed that most other operators would dread their inspections.
The point I'm trying to make is that over the years I've heard many people criticise CASA, The DOA, CAA or whoever it was at the time, complaining about this or that, bagging individuals, always up for a fight etc. At the same time I have seen many GA business operate with no business plan, their arse hanging out of their pants, operating less than adequately maintained aircraft, with little regard for the pilots they employed. I suspect that the confrontational tone some have with CASA may be part of their problem.
All I did was (inadvertently) take the approach of "What can I do to help them help me" In the end I had to do very little, but "they" did a lot. I learnt much and had some great mentors who made themselves available to me over the years.
Now as I said I'm not saying CASA or all its people are perfect. Perhaps because like us they are not perfect they sometimes respond to how they are treated and react accordingly. Your claim of large numbers of "PM's" surprises me.
Litigation is complex, expensive, and fraught with challenges and there is only ever one winner and that's the lawyers. I don’t know the facts of your case but if it were me, I'd put my guns back in there holsters, carefully think what exactly it is you want from CASA, then go and sit down with the guys and mediate. You may get a far better, less stressful and certainly less costly outcome. This industry is tough enough as it is, we need to work together.
I sincerely hope somehow you can find a path forward that leads to a satisfactory result for you.
For any young new entrants to the industry my message is there is a "whole" other side to this story.