"To the best of your knowledge, does The Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia have any input to your dilemma?"
Not as far as I know. The Vanuatu regs are based on the kiwi ones. The international organisation that advises the local aviation authorities seems though to be staffed by a number of Ozzies. This is fine except we seem to have Ozzies interpreting a kiwi rule set modified for Vanuatu advising officials trying their best to run a country without the population base, support systems and financial resources that such rules and regs require.
We invited the authorities in to check the work we were doing and being open in showing how hard we are trying to take care of our ship while also bringing in the worlds expert to assess, assist and evaluate us.
For these acts of good will we have been grounded despite the plane being in better condition than she was a few weeks ago and many people helping us.
Had we kept quiet, finished the work and returned flying with the blessing of the expert and the two engineers I'd be off on the most lucrative series of flights ever for our company. Instead voluntarily opening the door to the authorities has closed it on our business.