It now has to be assumed that anything the ATSB is told will be reported to CASA by the ATSB in sufficient detail to identify the pilot. Once the registration is known it is a simple matter to peruse the Maintenance release and in the case of a company or hired aircraft, the booking or task logs.
Even easier, CASA may request details of the flight plans of the aircraft concerned for the period under investigation from Air Services Australia which will identify the pilot. There are no end of methods that can be used to identify the pilot once the registration, or even perhaps simply the make, model, time and location are known.
Note: Yes I know you alll know that, but I'm hoping someone useful might read this.
Lookleft:
And who is the Shadow Minister? Why will they be any different to John Anderson and John Sharp (I think that's his name, the bloke who's on the board of Rex). The Regional Services portfolio usually goes to the NP leader who is also usually the Deputy PM. How much time or effort do you think will be put into aviation? Greg Searle was on the Senate Committee that looked at training and aviation and he was very alarmed after he heard some of the evidence. What influence did he have on the government's response to the final report?
At the risk of being long winded, this is how Government works.
1. Ministers are very very busy people. It is a hard job and Ministers have very little spare time - which is why they have public servants to do the detail work. Ministers and Governments make
POLICY.
2. Ministers only operate from
ADVICE which comes from a Public servant. That is why you constantly hear the words: "I am advised that....", "My advice is.......", "According to my advice......". The reason they operate by reference to advice is that they don't have the time or technical expertise to nut out a response to a particular issue. Doing something without a brief is highly dangerous because the Minister can't flick the blame onto a Public servant who advised him. .For example, the former NSW mines minister MacDonald is allegedly in trouble with the Corruption commission because he CANNOT produce a brief from the Public service recommending he grant Eddy Obied a mining lease.
3. The people who provide the advice are public servants who have the time and technical expertise to sort out:
(a) what the heck is going on?
(b) What should the Minister do about it? They do that by referring to the Governments policy.
(c) The Public Servant prepares a written
BRIEF to the Minister asking him to
DO SOMETHING.
4. The Brief to the Minister will be no more than Two A4 pages long, perhaps with supporting documentation such as a speech to deliver or a letter to someone to sign. The art of Brief writing is to get a succinct summary of the background, analysis and a recommendation onto no more than Two single sided A4 pages and preferably only One.
5. A Brief follows a set path. Say you write to the Minister, your letter will be opened by a Ministerial advisor. The letter gets sent to the Departmental Secretary who notes it and passes it on to the head of the section of the Department concerned. He sends it to the head of the sub section and so on until it arrives on the desk of the poor bugger who has to sort the matter out.
6 When the poor bugger sorts it out, he writes a Brief that goes up the same ladderr and each section head or department head initials the brief, meaning they approve it. A brief can go up and back down the approval chain many times before everyone judges it is exactly right. Finally the Department Secretary approves it and hands it to the Minister.
7. As I said earlier each brief is written with the objective of requesting that the Minister do something. Typical recommendations are:
"That you sign the attached letter" (to someone about something)
"That you note" ( because you are going to cop a parliamentary or media question about something, and you need to know these facts).
"That you approve something" (we want you to exercise your ministerial power under an Act of Parliament)
So when you "write to the Minister" about some bloke in CASA who had harsh words to you in Oodnadatta last week your letter is first catalogued, then passed right down the Departmental food chain to the very guy who spoke to you and he gets to write the Ministers reply. Now this is all a pain in the backside for everyone concerned because it makes unnecessary work.
As many people have found out, the Public service can be occasionally vindictive when the bona fides of their actions are called into question and they never forget. Your letter and the brief and response are on file forever and it will be pulled out and read the next time you request an approval for something, and of course it will influence the outcome.
In other words, you are expected by the Public service to cop it sweet and not to make waves. You may be branded a nutter or serial complainer and the Public service will exercise its revenge, perhaps years later.
Of course if Fifty unconnected people write to the Minister about the behaviour of a public servant on multiple occasions then action will be taken. On the other hand if a Public servant does something praiseworthy then write to the Minister because everyone from the Department Secretary down the food chain gets a big tick after their name and the letter goes on someones file as evidence of their good performance.
So back to the original question: Will a new Minister do something about CASA, ATSB and all? Short answer: NO. How could he when he has to take advice from the very people you are complaining about?
The only real threat to CASA and the current regime comes from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet who are the very dedicated public servants who keep the rest of the service in line. If there was a national scandal that attracted public interest (and lost votes) then the PM might act. If a sufficiently large, diverse and credible number of letters to the PM started appearing then the Department of PM &C might act. They are the only ones with sufficient authority, drive and intelligence to cut through the multiple defensive layers of legal and technical BS that have been built up around CASA for generations.
In case you are wondering, I had the priviledge of working in the public service for a few years and 99% of Public servants are hard working, intelligent, poorly paid and incorruptible people who have the best interest of the country to heart and do their best to make the unwieldy system we have built work. They taught me how to write a brief for which I am ever grateful.