The display put on by the Chair and senators in the inquiry is nothing short
of embarrassing -childish comments and questions, complete lack of understanding of the regulations and the law.
So you think all the Senators are being childish? Senator Heffernen has been in politics for a long time thats why he is Chairing the Committee. What he is doing is deliberately putting the agency heads off balance so they can't just trot out spin and buzz words like "stakeholders" and "going forward". I think the questions do show an understanding of the law and regs, after all Senator X is a lawyer and Senator F was a pilot.
What they are unearthing is that the various agencies are only interested in protecting their brand and saving face and not learning anything from this accident.
For ASA to state that they only respond to ATSB recommendations and then for the ATSB to state that they don't issue recommendations except as a last resort is going to be a red flag to a bull for someone like Senator H.
For McCormick to call this Committee (by inference) an uninformed minority shows how childish he is and how little he understands the role of Parliament in its oversight of Government agencies.