I can understand your frustrations
JS but personally I think there were some golden moments in the ASA appearance, which was best summed up in Ben's blog, see here:
Pel-Air hearing stunned by ATSB safety cop-out | Plane Talking
I have to agree with you
JS it was a very insipid performance from the ASA exec management
Here's an example where the new CEO very much stepped into the breach:
Ms Staib: The first thing I would say is that I am not concerned about how Airservices has dealt with this particular matter. The whole point is—
CHAIR: Is that because it is not in your jurisdiction?
Ms Staib: It is because we have followed our area of responsibility.
CHAIR: That is right. Exactly. It is not in your jurisdiction to have what does not worry you?
Ms Staib: Not in the way that this particular incident was handled. What it has brought out in my mind—appearing here before you—is that there is room for improvement in managing the cross-boundary areas of the different jurisdictions, because inevitably it is very difficult to see the line drawn on a map in the air.
CHAIR: Surely, in normal human workings, this is—with your permission Senator Xenophon—a fundamental flaw in that the weather was not conveyed in New Zealand airspace by the Bureau of Meteorology in New Zealand. Everyone knows that. The guy—even if you were the most mediocre pilot, like I used to be—would know to divert to somewhere like Noumea with ILS. That did not happen, because he did not get the information, and the outcome was catastrophic, to say the least. Surely, it is not one of those things where, like Senator Fawcett said: 'Don't look over the boundary. You mightn't like what you see.' For God's sake, why wouldn't you have been up CASA and up ATSB and up everyone else, like I intend to be, over this? It is obviously a flaw and obviously bureaucracies tend to protect themselves and put up a shell—'Don't ask, don't tell. That wasn't our responsibility' and 'Don't look over the fence.' For God's sake, what is going on?
A very big learning curve for the new ASA CEO. Still she'd better get used to dealing with hostile Senators, after all that is definitely part of Ms Staib's remit!!
The BOM part of this morning's event was very civilized in comparison...
And you can find the Hansard PDF here:
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/...pplication/pdf