From page 19 of Brian Aherne’s Sub_10_Aherne_Supplementary1[1].pdf where he defends himself from CASA’s playing the man tactic is worth regurgitating 
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5.10.4 This allegation indicates that Mr Aherne has little or no knowledge of the history involved. While he may be frustrated at what he perceives to be slow pace of regulatory reform, his unsubstantiated claims that certain individuals in CASA have wilfully obstructed the program are not tenable. Over the last three years, since the Standards Division was re-established, CASA staff have worked tirelessly to progress regulatory reform. It may be of interest to the Committee to know that elements of the aviation industry are now calling for CASA to slow the pace of change and in some cases stop it all together.
CASA assert in 5.10.4 that I have little or no knowledge of the history involved. See my extracts from the 2003 Cape Hillsboro accident report. That report speaks for itself.
I don’t call a 2001 decision to think about putting aerial ambulance operations into Aerial Work and determining over 8 years later not to, only to re-invigorate the idea again in 2012 for a 2014 intent as “Working Tirelessly”. If CASA do, then that is remarkable. (love it BA!)
Note: It might have been worth the author(s) of the CASA ATM (attack the man) to do a bit of research themselves as this statement… “
It may be of interest to the Committee to know that elements of the aviation industry are now calling for CASA to slow the pace of change…” has been spruiked by the DAS in Senate Estimates before, here is just one example from the 16/10/2012 Senate Estimates Hansard:
Senator FAWCETT: I have a couple of questions following on from the white paper. The CASA regulatory reform program, which was forecast to be completed by 2011, is on page 69. What is the current status of that?
Mr J McCormick: We have in previous estimates discussed the priority issues and also coming out of the flying training inquiry of last year. The status of the white paper was that the regs would be made by that date but not implemented because obviously some of the regulations affect up to 800 organisations and it takes a considerable amount of time to do the industry training and practice to make sure that those regs enter into the industry without introducing undue risk into the industry at the same time. So we undertook to complete parts 42, 66, 145 and 147 to be made by the end of this year, as I reported at estimates in the past, and we are on track to complete those regulated parts in time.
At the moment we have maintenance regulation 145 for the small end of town, GA part 135, which is the current low capacity RPT area. They are out to consultation now. The operational regulations part 119 and 121, the high capacity RPT replacement regs, and 135 are interleaved with those maintenance regulations because of requirements for the Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation, which is part 42. And we have generally taken the view that we do not want to make any of the regs when they are going to have a shelf life of longer than one year. We have had some calls from the industry to slow down the rate of the reg implementation program and we are cognisant of the fact that a considerable amount of training has to be done to make sure that those regs, particularly in the small end of town, are well and truly consulted with the industry so that we take on board their concerns and then we produce legislation that harmonises with existing parts 145 and 42 which we are in the process of rolling out and have been since June 2010.
It is also interesting to note that Bryan Aherne mentioning the 2003 Cape Hillsboro accident report has effectively taken us full circle on Senator Fawcett’s original question, yet to be properly answered, on ‘closing the loop’ back at the 23/05/2012 Senate Estimates, see this link to my post on the Hempel thread
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