CASA's use by date is expired. It should be abolished. Here's why.
The organisation provides only a modicum of input, generally misguided and legalistic, to the actual business of aviation and aviating. CASA is a hindrance to aviation not a contributor. The organisation has been provided with excessive discretion to make decisions on behalf of individuals and business and organisations and this discretion should be removed.
Parliament needs to be persuaded to the view that the time when there was a need for such oversight and intrusive involvement in aviation is over. Historic circumstances have changed.
Aviation Standards? yes, international base operational and manufacturing agreed (build or fix), is enough. We know enough from the safety research and accident investigations of a century what causes aircraft to crash and what is risky activity to know how to avoid it or minimise it without being told. Nothing has changed and safety is probably as good as it will get. We are at the '****up' factor, human mistakes and failures, the rest is the law of unintended consequences, there are always some for something. So we can work at improving but that is a natural process but we do not need a regulator to know this. All the industry, businesses, owners, pilots, engineers, ground staff, fuel people, cleaners and clerks, generally understand this, all of us go out on our day to day business with the intention of not being hurt, being killed or having an unpleasant day. We do not require hundreds of pages of regulations to tell us this or make us do this.
The historical circumstances that gave rise for the view and therefore the action of Parliament to provide intrusive regulation and therefore prevent the individual from holding the ultimate responsibility for their actions and hence their duty of care to all and sundry, is past. We live in the same world but at a very different level and much higher level of technology and knowledge. The technology has simplified administration and mechanised, now digitised, many manual processes. The systems are reliable and soundly designed. Compliance with commonly and internationally agreed systems and standards should be left to the responsible person, either corporate and individual and the transfer of legal risk from the State to the individual and hence and then subject to common law, risk would be managed and duty of care satisfied. We do it already in road transport. Apart from design standards , licensing and educational roles, any compliance process is left to random inspections and the annual requirement to meet registration requirements.
IF such a change was made, by new legislation cast in plain and simple language all the industry would then need government to supply was; a central group to manage ICAO and publish standards and update rules or guidance as appropriate, a licensing section, a registration section, an educational and training section, and safety research. That is it. The need for approval to run an aviation business would be gone and the supervision of day to day activity a matter for appropriate inspectors. Any inspectors or those engaged in such activity would and must come from a completely separate and judicially accountable body, such as the AFP, and compliance failure dealt with by administrative action excepting grevious and criminal acts.
It is industry and its participants that make aviation what it is today; reliable, safe and efficient air transport. Businesses do not make money with broken and wrecked equipment and crew do not go out to kill themselves and their passengers every day, their livelihood and income depends on it. There is professional pride in both workmanship and skills of all those who work in the industry, in all countries regardless of the regulatory regime. Excellence comes and goes. The rules to avoid accidents are very simple indeed. All of this owes nothing to or has anything to do with CASA or its predecessors, no matter how well intentioned.
Time to move on is my view!