Only a complete root and branch reform of Aviation Regulation is ever going to work.
I am of the view and have stated this before on this Forum and elsewhere that CASA and the Board should be abolished, the curent Act be repealed and the rule set of the FAA adopted with minor changes only. All the current staff should be made redundant and or dismissed and replaced by a new organisation or Branch within a Government department and the terms and conditions of any furture employees terms of employment returned to within and comply with the standards required under the ambit of the Public Service Act and the oversight of the Public Service Commission and the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
The inspectorate, licensing and standards functions need to be seperated out and placed within a framework or under the control of a Government body such the Department of Transport so that the powers and inappropriate influce of one by the other is prevented and their roles provided for seperately in a clear and unambiguous manner by appropriate legal statute.
All the previous posts about this failed organisation and the failed attemtps at reform of Aviation regulation repeatedly show that the issue of the use (misuse) of regulatory powers by employees of the Commonwealth as manifest by past and present officers of this Authority is clearly by any measure or test the first, second and third problem with the authority for the past thirty years, thus we have the perversion of the rule of law by the authority and the corruption and incompetence that the Authority has come to represent.
The current regulator is unaccountable and unrepresentative of the industry it regulates or of the broader community it is required to serve and has degenerated into an ineffective and malicious organisation where personal ambition and outdated practice is the norm where opinion (or misguided and inappropriate legal opinion) holds sway and is held to be evidence and where scientific empirical data and rational decision making has ceased to hold sway or influence or guide practice or indeed even be generated.
The need for a body that regulates aviation activity by way of commonsense licensing and the setting of appropriate standards has been completely lost and this intent and requirement in the way the regulator performs that function should be clearly written into the Act in a way that cannot be re-intepreted by CASA or a manner which allows for opinion to replace factual data and empirical evidence.
The need for consultation and consensus on matters of standards, within an internationally binding framework has be be required of and written into any new Act and regulations or Parts. There are a number of key areas that must and have to be changed if any reform is to achieve any meaningful outcomes;
1) SAFETY must be defined in the Act or Regulations which provide the statutory powers and functions of the regulator.
2) The provision of criminal sanctions and penalties for non compliance must be curtailed and only provided for wilful, grievous and seriously negligent actions and those matters and the bringing of such an allegation or case must be constrained by the rule of law and brought back into the appropriate jurisdiction where only the CDPP is allowed to prosecute and where the public interest so requires that this happen.
3) The 'fit and proper person' provisions for licensing have to be removed from the regulations.
4) The new authority should be required by its legislation to properly consult with industry in a publicly accountable manner and account for such consultation in the preparation of and issueing of any directive or instruction before, during and after the issuance of any directive or instructin according to and only in accordance with the rules that provide its powers.
5) All third tier instruments and defacto regulatory instruments such as Civil Aviation Orders and Directives should be repealed excepting those adopted by reason of international agreement or those replicating and critical to airworthiness or airsafety and any such directives should be allowed and have automatic right of challenge at law by any person who believes they do not conform to the meaning of Safety as defined within the Act.
6) Any future organisation should have by way of oversight an Industry Consultative Body or Committee made up of properly elected representatives of the Industry and Community and they should be given the right of veto of any decision by the regulatory body with respect to the exercise of its powers or functions excepting those which involve matters of criminal sanction.
7) Invesigator powers as per the Regulations should be withdrawn and repealed, there are a nonsense and those employed to investigate require no special powers excepting those requiring them to gather evidence and where they do then they should be required to justify to a Justice the exercise of any power requiring entry and search, the same as Police are required to.
8) The application of a criminal sanction and hence offences under the rules with a penalty provision should be restricted to grave and wilful acts or loss of life. All other breaches should be dealt with by way of administrative action only and subject to review by the AAT and the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
The examples which support such reform and the need for reform to be urgently conducted are evident in the many instances if not hundreds of cases and examples that now go back to the Seaview Inquiry period where the Authority has been repeatedly show and allowed to continue to conduct its affairs with the cultural perspective and powers (via convoluted regulations and orders) so that it is effectively in all things that it does judge, jury and executioner. It should be allowed to bring a case or require that a case be answered where it has the evidence to support the allegations it makes but only to a Court of Law.
And until all the above happen you will never have a fair and impartial regulator acting in the interest of the communith or the industry but what we evidently have now and have had for some time - failure.