Senator HEFFERNAN: I—
CHAIR: Hang on, Senator Heffernan.
Senator HEFFERNAN: I am agreeing with you.
CHAIR: One thing about me is consistency. If someone wants to have a whinge, put it on a note or piece of paper and bring it up. I understand there are complexities around that, but if people do not want to be mentioned, as far as I am concerned while I am chairing, then do not bother me with the complaint, but you will take that further. You have some issues that you will represent your constitutes directly with CASA in a different forum.
Senator IAN MACDONALD: Many of them were your constituents, I have to say, Mr Chairman.
CHAIR: I am from Western Australia and they have not complained to me, Senator Macdonald.
Senator IAN MACDONALD: They flew all the way to Brisbane.
CHAIR: If they want to put their name to it, then good. If they just want to go behind the scenes I am not interested. On that, you have mentioned that there have been some complaints. Are you happy to leave it at that, Mr McCormick? Is there anything that you want to put on the record before we go to Senator Xenophon?
Mr McCormick: Thank you, Chair. All I would say is that any complaints that were known to me I acknowledged were known to me. You may recall I asked the officers present whether we were aware of these complaints. Some people had complaints going back many years that had long been settled, which they enlivened again and which I was not aware. Or they had, as I say, not been active at all in the period of time that I have been there. We take all complaints seriously. I will say again, I welcome anybody, any of your constituents or anybody in the industry to send any complaint to me or to the Industry Complaints Commissioner or they can go to the Ombudsman if they wish.
Senator IAN MACDONALD: They tell me they are afraid to do it.
Mr McCormick: As I said at the start, going back to Senator Xenophon's question if I could, we do not stand for retaliation. If we find it, if it comes out that there is a threat of retributive justice, for want of a better term, then we will take serious action. There is no complaint in front of me. I have not had a complaint of that. The board has not had a complaint about that. That is about all I can say about that.
I think one of the issues that we see, and we did see this recently in North Queensland, is that some people in the industry, particularly young pilots, are not game to talk to us, not because they fear retribution from us but they fear retribution from their peers and they fear that once they are identified as a whistle-blower they will not get a job, they will never get into an airline and they will never progress. I have had that put to me. I have had people say that to me directly. That is more the issue that we see.
Senator XENOPHON: I will try and cover a lot of the field in three particular areas in the next three or four minutes if I may.
CHAIR: Just keep going and I will let you know how we are travelling.
Senator XENOPHON: On this issue where Senator Macdonald raises concerns, can I put it in as neutral terms as possible? Senator Macdonald has heard from people within the industry, I have heard from people within the industry and there are other colleagues that I have had private conversations with that have heard issues. I am putting it in shorthand and I am not saying it in the pejorative sense. They feel that with CASA there is a certain arrogance and that CASA is a regulatory bully. Now, whether that is true or not, there are too many people saying that to members of parliament who have that concern. If you accept that we are being told that by a number of people in aviation around the country, how do you deal with that? How do you short-circuit that to try to defuse this issue and get out in the open in a constructive way so that people do not feel this way? Senator Macdonald, Senator Nash, other colleagues and people in aviation that I know quite well have raised with me that they feel there is a certain arrogance and in some cases going into the field of bullying. Again, I am not accusing CASA of that. I am just saying that this is what we are told and that worries the hell out of me in terms of aviation safety. How do we short-circuit this and defuse that once and for all?
Mr McCormick: As I said, Senator, I do share your concerns about this. It is perplexing to me why people feel that way. One of the ways to do it is to get out, just like I have done, and go around and actually talk to people who are out there, who would not necessarily raise their hand or say anything otherwise, and say, 'What are your issues?' We have got an education program going which we are going to increase. We are going to go out more with a proactive message telling people that when you do regulatory change it is a difficult thing to do.
To get back to Senator Fawcett's question, because I think it is also relevant here, when we have moved into certificate management teams, when we have moved into IT based systems to look at risk, we are able to see things now which in the past we did not see. There are things now which we see about organisations where we are in a situation where we should take action. We are not alone in this. If I could, and I am not of course trying to put anything on the FAA, the Assistant Inspector General for Aviation and Special Programs, US Department of Transportation, gave a report to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on the 16th of last month, FAA's Progress and Challenges in Advancing Safety Oversight Initiatives. This is interesting because we are now—
Senator XENOPHON: Can you table that or refer us to it?
Mr McCormick: I will just put this line to you if I could. It may give a bit of information. It said:
FAA’s surveillance at foreign and domestic repair stations also lacks the rigor needed to identify deficiencies and verify they have been addressed. Systemic problems we identified during our 2003 review—such as inadequate mechanic training, outdated tool calibration checks, and inaccurate work order documentation—persist at the repair stations we recently visited. FAA guidance requires inspectors to review these specific areas during repair station inspections, but inspectors overlooked these types of deficiencies.
This is what used to happen in CASA as well. We do not overlook deficiencies. Some of them are very easily clear, but this is an issue which is prevalent across the industry.
Senator XENOPHON: I am not suggesting that, and I understand the heavy burden on CASA to oversee the aviation safety of this country. Can you take this on notice, because I am going to run out of time, there is a perception out there—
Mr McCormick: I acknowledge that.
Senator XENOPHON: not just from people I speak to—Senator Macdonald has spoken to many, Senator Nash and other colleagues in the Senate and in the lower house have raised this issue as well. There are too many stories from too many people. Could you at least take on notice to consider carefully: how can you defuse what appears to be a culture of fear amongst some within the aviation industry.
Mr McCormick: Certainly, Senator, and I do acknowledge that.
Senator XENOPHON: Further to that, there is widespread concern amongst pilots about the flight-time duty regulations, the relatively recent regulations, and the risk they pose to aviation safety. I understand that these concerns have been put to you, but the reports I have had back are that CASA, and you in particular, have been I think the word is dismissive of them. Why is it the case that the pilots I have spoken to, some very senior pilots with many thousands of hours of experience, have expressed to me that they are at the coalface, and they say that there is a real issue in terms of these new regulations? For instance, I am told that in certain circumstances under the new regulations CASA allows two pilots to be on duty for 14 hours and to be at the controls for 10 hours. I am told that the science indicates 12 to 13 hours maximum duty in ideal conditions and that fatigue risk increases substantially beyond 16 hours awake. If there is a delay in the flight through weather or whatever—many pilots I have spoken to, including representatives of pilots groups, are incredibly concerned about the new flight-time limitation rules.
Mr McCormick: I will ask our Executive Manager, Standards, to give you a bit of background on who we had involved in this process of the rule making of the KO84.
Senator XENOPHON: But can you understand why some people –
Mr McCormick: I will say one thing: I am not dismissive of complaints of anyone. I am certainly not dismissive of pilot complaints. Having been a long-time airline pilot myself, I know what fatigue means.
Senator XENOPHON: I know that—with many hours—but why is it that pilots tell me that you feel that you are dismissive of their complaints?
Mr McCormick: We have had two sorts of feedback on these rules: one from the industry, saying they are not hard enough, and from the pilots' side we have had them saying they are too hard. That is always the balance we have to strike. I will ask Mr Boyd to give you a background on where we are. Quick.
Senator XENOPHON: Mr McCormick, most flying passengers would rather take the word of the pilots than that of the bean counters.
Mr McCormick: I would not disagree with you.
Senator XENOPHON: The pilots feel ignored.
Mr Boyd: As far as I am aware, the only feedback we have from pilots, for example, on the fatigue regulations is to do with the representation of the pilots' groups on the safety action groups that we have in the regulations for consultation around fatigue risk management systems.
Senator XENOPHON: Who represent thousands of pilots.
Mr Boyd: Indeed.
Senator XENOPHON: They are saying that these rules stink and that there is a real risk in terms of fatigue and with it aviation safety. So why would you not put a lot of weight on what the pilots are saying?
Mr Boyd: Senator, the feedback we are getting is not that the rules stink, as you put it.
Senator XENOPHON: But it is that they do pose a risk to aviation safety.
Mr Boyd: The only feedback we have from the pilots association is about that particular issue.
Senator XENOPHON: And will you be acting on that particular issue?
Mr Boyd: We have replied to the association to say that we are taking the ICAO approach, and that is what we have taken all the way through this development of the fatigue regulations.
Senator XENOPHON: Can you provide us with details of documents with respect to that?
Mr Boyd: Absolutely.
Senator XENOPHON: Can you provide those documents as a matter of urgency, because there may be a disallowance motion that might go down that path; I am not sure. Mr McCormick, I will put a number ofquestions on notice. In relation to the recent inquiry, I think you told the inquiry that you instigated the Chambers report. Is that right?
Mr McCormick: Yes, that is correct.
Senator XENOPHON: You commissioned it?
Mr McCormick: That is correct.
Senator XENOPHON: What prompted the report to be commissioned?
Mr McCormick: I had commenced a reorganisation of program of CASA to align it around the functions of the act—to work smarter, basically, and to make sure that we were covering areas that we had not covered in the past. These were things such as training—we did not have a training school—and standards—we did not have a standards section. We had to put these things in place. After the Pel-Air reports, the special audit and the accident report were done, I commissioned the Chambers report to ask, 'How are we actually doing? Leave aside the Pel-Air—that just happened to be the most recent incident—but what is our standard of surveillance?' We did not give the Chambers report to peer review. I took it on as it was, literally, written. We have completed recommendations since then out of the Chambers report. In 2009 the Chambers report was showing us what we were like in the preceding years to 2009. It was not predictive, and it certainly is not where we are today.
Senator XENOPHON: I have got two more questions. What prompted you to focus on the Bankstown office?
Mr McCormick: I will take this on notice, but from memory there were over 77 certificates being managed from a very small office. In other words, an enormous amount of surveillance was being done at Bankstown.
Senator XENOPHON: Was there any material associated with the report, such as a covering note or notes attached to that report, that CASA did not provide to the committee? You may want to take that on notice. In other words, as part of the extensive process of obtaining documents as part of the preliminary enquiry, the many boxes of documents, we got the report—
Mr McCormick: To my knowledge, what you got was all of the report. If there was an email that said, 'Here is the Chambers report attached', you would have had that email as well.
Senator XENOPHON: I would urge you to take this on notice, in fairness to you.
Mr McCormick: We will take it on notice.
Senator XENOPHON: Were there any covering notes or any associated materials with that report that were not provided to the committee?
Mr McCormick: Senator, as you know, we have provided well over 600 emails to you. The only difficulty I am having is knowing what we actually provided to you and saying whether we actually provided it or not. I will go back and look at the Chambers report and we will take it on notice.
Senator XENOPHON: My understanding is that there was not a covering note or any associated note with the report, but I would like to know whether there was one.
Mr McCormick: To my knowledge there was not, but we will take it on notice. Chair, in answer to Senator Nash's question earlier on—unfortunately not about the taxis—the company providing the plants is Living Simply, trading as Tropical Foliage Pty Ltd.
Senator NASH: Thank you.