Oh and don't forget, when you reply remember to move rapidly to attack me rather than debate the issues.
Well, if you insist...
Some person has chosen to vilify practicing lawyers
Practising. By a C not with a C, so the saying goes.
It's like being a Mormon or a used car salesman. Joke doing the rounds in the sleepy city... a local firm has gone bad with a number of lawyers laid off without prior notice, allegedly bills, wages and super have not been paid, all the usual sludge but the partners are still driving around in fancy cars to much condemnation from the legal fraternity. The joke is of course; when even the sharks are calling you a scum sucking, bottom dwelling shyster, you must be pretty low...
A lawyer joke from the lawyers (and they have a strange sense of humour). Suffice to say, they're pretty used to it and I doubt they need a person with a sword to fight on their behalf...which is of course how barristers started in any case.
So, I agree; things could be better but it may take more horsepower from those pursuing it than has been demonstrated here.
Your suggestion? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? What can the average aviating citizen do when they are dissatisfied with a regulator and frustrated with its perceived shortcomings, except complain on the internet? Letters go unanswered, pollies don't care and aviation's too hard for them to figure out even if they did. As you've stated, petitions do jack all... These days the actual frontline CASA staff are harder to spot in the wild than bilbies, and when you do you often wish you hadn't...
What to do?
Lawyers are good at interpreting points of law and being swordsman for their clients. Whether they are good at running government departments is more questionable, particularly in relation to goodwill and industry liaison.
When there is no industry trust in a regulator, the regulator may as well pack up and retire to a burrow in Canberra. IME (with a different regulator
), 95+% of people generally do the right thing or want to do the right thing if it doesn't cost them too much money or paperwork. When the regulator won't dialogue with the 95% and the 5% keep getting away with it, you can hardly blame people for being CASA skeptics.