Senate Inquiry, Hearing Program 4th Nov 2011

[Sarcs]

Beancounter Beaker’s dilemma and Albo’s elephant in the room!

Sailed past a couple of dates this week. Beaker, Mrdak and Albo remember these??

24th July:

Senator XENOPHON:All right. This goes to another resource issue and relates to the ditching of the Pel-Air flight in November 2009. Without rehashing the report, the basis of the ATSB refusal to retrieve the cockpit voice recorder is based on an interpretation of ICAO annex 13. Is that a fair assessment?
Mr Dolan: That is one element of it, as I tried to make clear at the time. Another consideration is in my role as chief executive of the ATSB, with responsibilities under a range of legislation, including the Financial Management and Accountability Act, as to the efficient, effective and ethical use of Commonwealth resources.
Senator XENOPHON:So what takes priority: the Financial Management and Accountability Act or ICAO annex 13 in terms of our international obligations with regard to aviation safety and accident investigation?
Mr Dolan: In my role I am required to balance my obligation under the Transport Safety Investigation Act to undertake the functions of the organisation consistent with a range of international instruments, including annex 13, but I am also equally required to have regard to the efficient and effective use of Commonwealth resources. They are the decisions that we have to make on a regular basis in terms of how we undertake our work.
Senator XENOPHON:So, if you are required to equally assess both, what wins out when it is finely balanced? Is it our international obligations to appropriately and thoroughly investigate aviation accidents or is it budgetary constraints?
Mr Dolan: The question we will always need to ask ourselves is how we meet our obligations and what the necessary level of investigation is, and we have to have regard to the availability of resources. For major investigations there will come a point where it is clearly not within our annual budget to deal with the consequences of it. That is certainly the position with any major accident. We already have arrangements in place that, were there a major accident that has an ongoing, above-the-ordinary call on our investigations, we can ask the government for additional funding, but we are always making calls about what we do within our existing resources and what constitutes a major investigation that would require an approach to the government for further funding.
Senator XENOPHON:So you have not reconsidered your interpretation of ICAO annex 13 in relation to the retrieval of the cockpit voice recorder in the Pel-Air ditching?
Mr Dolan: More broadly speaking and specifically to that question, the recommendations that came out of the committee's report as they referred to the ATSB as an independent agency will be reviewed by the commission of the ATSB—me and my fellow commissioners—so it is not just a decision for me but for the three of us acting collectively in accordance with our legal responsibility.
Senator XENOPHON:In the financial year that the Pel-Air ditching occurred, you were within budget, weren't you? You were not over budget at the end of that year.
Mr Dolan: We had a surplus at the end of that year, correct.
Senator XENOPHON:So you cannot say that the decision not to retrieve the cockpit voice recorder was due to budgetary constraints, because by the end of that financial year you still had a surplus.
Mr Dolan: I still had to have regard to the likely and projected costs of recovery, what my available resources were and what I needed to do with them.
Senator XENOPHON:It is another jurisdiction, but I think the ATSB is involved in Indonesia and does provide assistance. In the recent crash of a Lion Air 737 off Bali earlier this year, the cockpit voice recorder was retrieved at a great cost and difficulty even though the crew survived, because annex 13 requires it and the international community expects it. Is there any possibility that you will reconsider the decision not to retrieve the cockpit voice recorder in relation to the Pel-Air incident?
Mr Dolan: There is a possibility—in fact, there is the certainty—that the commissioners will reconsider it. That is part of our review of the recommendations of the committee. Once we have done that, we will report back on the results of our consideration.
Senator XENOPHON:And when do you think that will be reconsidered?
Mr Dolan:At this stage—and I need to have further discussions with my fellow commissioners—we have a scheduled formal commission meeting on 24 July. At this stage, that is when we would expect to consider all the recommendations of the committee.
Senator XENOPHON:I think Senator Edwards raised this during the inquiry. Is there a possibility that ATSB will consider reopening that investigation based on the findings of the Senate committee report?
Mr Dolan: We have a recommendation in front of us from the committee that says that we should do that and we will have due regard to that recommendation.
Senator XENOPHON:The committee has criticised the ATSB in relation to its report on the Pel-Air ditching. You are now in a position to reconsider whether you ought to reopen the investigation. Do you think it is appropriate that an independent person outsourced by the ATSB—an aviation expert—make recommendations as to whether it ought to be reopened given that there is a fundamental conflict? It is sort of like Caesar judging Caesar in the context of what ought to be done with respect to reopening the investigation.
Mr Dolan: I hear what you are saying, Senator. A matter obviously I would have to discuss with my fellow commissioners is what information and advice they may wish to rely on in reconsidering the decision that has been made.
Senator XENOPHON:Do you think it is appropriate that there be some independent assessment as to whether the investigation be reopened given that there would be, on the face of it, an apparent conflict with the board effectively having to make a call as to whether it should be critical of its previous report?
Mr Dolan: No, I do not. I see that our responsibilities as the commissioners of the ATSB in meeting the functions of the organisation are something that we are required to appropriately consider. What information we draw on to make those considerations I think is a matter for us.
Senator EDWARDS:Are you seriously considering judging yourselves on this information again?
Mr Dolan: We are seriously considering weighing all the information that has been available through the Senate committee and other material that might come to light in making our decision as we are required to do under our legislation.
Mr Mrdak: Clearly these are matters which the government will need to consider in the light of the Senate committee's report.
Senator EDWARDS:Sure, I am trying to give you some guidance.
Mr Mrdak: We do appreciate that. Mr Dolan is quite correctly putting the position of the commission regarding its legislation. The matters that have been raised in the report and the issues both Senator Xenophon and Senator Edwards have just raised are matters that we will put to the minister as part of the government's response.

Part of the above fits in quite nicely with Senator Fawcett’s 30/05/2013 ‘Media Release’:



The three little pigs, none of which has any aviation experience at all, should have had their little meeting by now??? Therefore I can only gather that Beaker is currently, doing what he does best, crunching the numbers and seeing if the budget can stretch to a) Lifting the CVR/FDR; and b) re-opening the investigation. So is there an announcement imminent? Or will Beaker and Co continue to obfuscate and spin the matter till the election?

Next date was the 26th July, which if you remember was the D-day for the Estimate QONs. Not that it is unusual for Albo and his cronies at DoIT to go by the ‘use by date’ on outstanding QONs, in fact it is the norm, example:

Senator HEFFERNAN:Welcome, Mr Mrdak. I would just like to emphasise the disruption and the unfairness demonstrated—not necessarily by the department—on questions on notice. They came back, and I have no idea how long they were in the minister's office, and were received by this committee on Friday at two or three o'clock in the afternoon. Religiously and with great precision DAFF have their questions back on the given day, and we commended Minister Ludwig yesterday for that. But sadly the questions on notice from Minister Albanese's office are always late. It is unfair to the committee and, as a consequence of the late afternoon on Friday, the hardworking people in the secretariat had to work on Friday night and Saturday just to process the questions. I think that is most unreasonable. There is no strategic reason. Bugger it—the questions and the answers are the questions and the answers, and if they are on paper we ought to be entitled to see them in time to get our head around them. They can often be important issues—and I am sure that Senator Fawcett is about to raise important issues—that we need to thoroughly process in the best interests of the Australian public.

However we had this rather insistent (read urgent) QON from the bi (maybe tri) partisan Senate Committee:

Senator FAWCETT:Mr Mrdak, I want to come to the issue of the process of the department to respond to reports of the Senate. You would be aware that a report was tabled into a couple of areas of your responsibility last week. In accordance with various decisions of the Senate the minister has three months to respond. That three-month period will fall right in the middle of the caretaker period, which means that significant safety issues could potentially be stretched out beyond four or five months before resolution, which is unacceptable. Could you tell the committee what your plan is to make sure that those issues are addressed in a timely manner, given the overlapping of significant time frames?
Mr Mrdak: We are certainly aware of the serious issues raised by the committee's report that was tabled last week in the Senate. The minister has sought urgent advice from agencies in relation to the matters raised by the Senate committee. We are now in the process of providing that advice to the minister. The minister certainly does recognise the need to urgently review and address the recommendations. I am not in a position here today to give you an exact time frame as to when the minister and the government will formally respond to the report but I think we all are very conscious of the fact that with the date of the federal election being proposed for 14 September and caretaker mode notionally starting on around 12 August that would fall within the normal three-month period. I can only say to you that the government is giving this serious and urgent consideration and looking to expedite its response as best it can.
Senator FAWCETT:I accept that you cannot speak for the minister and when he will release his response but can you give the committee an undertaking that the department's response to the minister will occur in sufficient time so that he can respond before the caretaker mode?
Mr Mrdak: Certainly that would be our intention. As I said, the minister has sought advice. In preliminary discussions with him on the issues involved he has sought that advice as a matter of urgency and we are doing that now, along with our portfolio agencies.
Senator HEFFERNAN:It weighed heavily on the minds of all members of the committee—and you will note it was a unanimous report—that we address the issues raised in the way we have. We absolutely wanted to be open and honest in that report and we did not want to have even the slightest prospect that in future there could be a calamity which would come back to haunt our conscience.
Mr Mrdak: I appreciate that, Senator, and the department is as a matter of urgency preparing advice for the government to consider on the issues raised.
Senator IAN MACDONALD:Mr Mrdak, I appreciate that you cannot with accuracy indicate when your advice will be ready, but you would have some idea of when you might be in a position to submit advice to the minister. Is it likely to take a day, a week, a month?
Mr Mrdak: We already have officers in the department—and clearly me and senior officers—who have carefully read the report now. I have had discussions with my senior officers. We envisage being in a position to provide some initial advice to the minister, I expect, certainly within the next week to 10 days in relation to it. We have been through the process of the budget and now estimates. I envisage having conversations with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority CEO and the head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau in the coming days to ascertain their views, to enable me to provide a comprehensive view to the minister, I would hope by the end of next week.
Senator IAN MACDONALD:Thank you for that. Senator Thistlethwaite, as the minister representing the minister, can you give any indication of what timing the minister might adopt in relation to this important report and the government's response to it?

Senator Thistlethwaite:I cannot give you an indication now, Senator, but I can take that on notice and see if we can come back to you before the end of the day.

Senator IAN MACDONALD:That would be great, thank you.

Meanwhile at Teflon man’s HQ the elephant keeps putting on weight:


And the IOS continue to wait patiently...hmm and it is now less than a month before the Government response is due!