Their specialty is cutting bureaucrats down to size. Contrary to what some people think the " it's too technical for you to understand, so leave us alone " defense has been advanced by many government organizations over the years and PM &C are quite capable of slicing through them like a hot knife through butter, as other institutions have found out to their cost.
Sunfish,
Your faith in PM&C is touching (did you work there once?) but in my opinion, misplaced. In my view PM&C is the most intensely political of all "departments" (using the term loosely)
Just to go over a bit of background.
With the incoming Howard Government in 1996, John Sharp established the CASA Review. This was split in two parts, the CASA Role Review --- what was CASA's job, and the Regulatory Framework Review --- what should the rules (if indeed, rules were actually required in some areas, as opposed to Codes of Practice etc.), and the Government ( Sharp, the Minister) set the policy, as Creampuff rightly says, is the job of Government --- much to the disgust of the "iron ring" of (now) CASA, who had dominated policy since the days of DCA.
Effectively, (with a very new Director, Leroy Keith) the doyens of the "iron ring" nominated the members of the PAP, which was the usual bunch of "industry experts", in fact functionaries of the various alphabet soup organisations, who would not trouble CASA with anything radical.
Once John Sharp, as Minister, saw the list, there was a considerable eruption, and the original PAP was, effectively, dismissed before it even started.
John Sharp appointed the members of the PAP Mk2, chaired by James Kimpton, an Ansett lawyer, and later a board member and Vice Chairman of CASA. Leroy Keith was an ex-officio of the PAP --- and an enthusiastic supporter of John Sharp's plans for reforming CASA.
At the time, the Chairman of the CASA Board Board was Mr. Justice William Fisher, a wily old bird, tough as nails, who knew his was around politics and the public service.
Considerable progress was made, despite the whole gamut of public service delaying tactics. in mid-1998, Parts 21 to 35 became law, Part 21 has some important innovations --- as a result of Government policy. As Paul Phelan has mentioned, Vaile followed through, when Sharp resigned --- a great loss to aviation, at the time.
Then things started to go haywire --- as a result of board changes, ministerial changes and a new Director.
Without writing a novel, by 2003, the then Minister, John Anderson, was thoroughly teed off with the regression in CASA, the re-emergence of the "iron ring" as dominant --- and decided to do something about it --- planning to do pretty much what the recent Senate Report on Pel Air
suggests.
Sadly (and here is the point) PM&C stepped in and kyboshed Anderson's plans, because they (PM&C) didn't want any adverse publicity that might have resulted from the proposed major shakeup of CASA, and the appointment of a new CEO/Director. After that, John Anderson lost interest in aviation.
The shambles we now have, with the CASA iron ring running the "policy", particularly since the departure of Bruce Byron and Greg Vaughan, is there for all to see.
The Reg. Reform Program has not been a 20 or so year continuum, it has been a series of attempted reforms, all finally thwarted by the members of the "iron ring", and going back (to my knowledge) the 1960's.
In balance, the Australian aviation community, and the Australian economy has suffered very badly as a result of the style of public service administration of aviation over too many years ---- indeed, since the dawn of aviation in Australia.
Other countries have Air Shows to commemorate battles or wars, what other country has staged a major airshow (at then ASBK) to commemorate to 50th anniversary of the publication of the first ANO??
Tootle pip!!