wercras:
So how anybody would or could honestly say that he/she thinks the current departments are robust, adequate, safe, improving annually, compliant or even 'leaders in their field' is twisted. There are however a number of reasons one could speculate on as to why an individual would or could be so supportive of the current malaise, but that could potentially open up a litigators can of worms.
I can explain it for you. It is very simple. Mrdak and the entire public service are out of their depth when it comes to aviation because they have no technical experience of Aviation whatsoever.
I know what that feels like. I was once recruited as a General Manager, Systems Integration, for a reasonably sized IT company and I was completley, technically, out of my depth. You have no idea what that is like until you find yourself chairing a meeting of technical specialists charged with developing the technical strategy for a $40 million IT system.
CASA correctly calculates that no one in Government has the slightest idea about what they do and any criticism or unwelcome enquiry can be easily deflected by reference to impenetrable jargon: FAA, ICAO, Warsaw Convention, Adiabatic lapse rates, thronomisters, Bernoulli, etc. This is where the impenetrable and unnecessary complexifications of the Australian regulations also helps.
CASA owns the territory because it has created an impossibly impenetrable system that no one outside CASA can unravel. This will no doubt be backed up with the unspoken threat: "If you mess with it Minister, then you own it, and if anything goes wrong then its YOU who are to blame.".
As I said previously, the boyz and girlz in PM & C know how to deal with this and so do some Ppruners - break up CASA into separte regulator and enforcer, get in outside expertise and go through management ranks with an axe, however the current Minister has no stomach for that.
To put that another way, the public service wouldn't know the difference between a Notam and a Timtam, so they leave CASA to its own devices.