That inquiry, which will report later this year, has placed on the public record, and under the rules of parliamentary privilege, some damning claims and supporting evidence of abuses of process or dereliction of duty in CASA, Australia’s air safety regulator, and its no longer independent safety investigator, the ATSB.
The submissions and transcripts include some ugly and disturbing reading. The committee appears united across party lines in its determination to uncover the truth of the matters raised. And that includes what amounts to the un-Australian mistreatment of the pilot of the ditched Westwind jet, Dominic James, who while not blameless, was turned into a scapegoat through a process where the fuller picture of CASA incompetence was (unsuccessfully) hidden from discovery.
However the difference between Australia and America in relation to the public administration of air safety is that in this country the media doesn’t give a sh*t, and has neither resources nor focus to follow and report a significant scandal in the process and conduct of the ATSB and CASA.
What is happening in the US media in relation to the FAA and the NTSB can change the future for the better, stress
can.
What is happening in the Australian media can lead to continued tolerance of second rate standards in aviation regulation leading to disasters, stress
can.
Australia can do better than this.
The Senate committee has uncovered some disturbing conduct. But if no one is paying attention, will its work lead to results, or end up as a tragic dossier tendered to a Royal Commission into a future air disaster that could have been prevented by our air safety agencies doing their jobs rather than favours?