And those answers neatly summarise the fundamental failure of structure and process that results in a regulatory reform program that will drift along forever in Australia.
Other than repeating vacuous motherhood statements that have been made ad nauseam over the last couple of decades, what could the CASA Board meaningfully contribute to the “emphasis and direction of regulatory reform”?
But forget the Board - we already know, as a consequence of an expensive experiment, that having a Board and not having a Board has made not one iota of difference to the regulatory reform program.
The fundamental problem is that CASA should not be ‘responsible’ for the regulatory reform program. (I use the term ‘responsible’ in the government sense, not in the sense that normal people use that term.)
It’s all well and good for successive Ministers and Departments to ‘outsource’ the program to CASA, but the fundamental flaw in that idea is that regulatory reform requires someone to make, and take responsibility for making, lots and lots of decisions of policy.
CASA isn’t qualified or appropriate to make decisions of policy.
That’s why the pus-filled detritus at the centre of this running sore – classification of operations reform – is where it’s at. i.e. nowhere.
While it’s great for successive Ministers and Departments that most of industry wastes its energy arguing with and blaming CASA for the Frankenstein that is the regulatory reform program, sooner or later the monster will have to be destroyed. It’s never going to produce a complete, coherent and credible set of rules.
Last edited by Creampuff; 1st Jun 2013 at 05:42.