Franks post makes some worthy points.
It occurs to me that we as lay people look at these things from the point of view of "Justice."
The law is not about justice, its about winning.
People from the legal fraternity like Macca are not concerned with justice,
they get paid to win, whether they are acting for the prosecutor or the defence.
Its sad, but on the day it turned out John's legal team were beaten by CASA's, we are looking with hindsight and seeing an injustice, unfortunately too late.
We also express anger at the regulators for perpetrating what we perceive as an injustice, but in reality they are not concerned with justice either. They are what we call public servants and we imagine they are employed to serve the public where in fact they serve whatever agenda their department requires and to a large extent themselves, notches on their guns can mean promotion, so why are we surprised that they will, and do, manipulate the system to gain a win.
Frank is right, we get the regulator we deserve because our apathy allows them to exploit us with a "divide and rule" philosophy.
The time to defend guys like John should have been long before it escalated into the AAT farce.
Until the Industry stops waring with itself and forms strong associations that can counter events like John's, and also bring wayward members into line as well, CASA is going to walk all over us. Remember their charter does not require them to foster anything except more regulation.
For a good example of how to get CASA off your back just look at the enormous strides the Ag boys have made, the RAA is also starting to get its act together as well, divided we fall united we win, never truer words were spoken.
If John's case had occured in the USA, certain Pollies would have received a flood of angry mail on their desk, has anyone written to their local member expressing outrage about John's treatment?