As you can see this so called "Safety Forum", held in Sydney, is very top heavy with expensive public servants, many if not most, no doubt from Canberra (over-night?) and a full reading of the minutes reveal that virtually nothing of a safety nature, let alone efficiency, will be accomplished via this forum.
Kharon, thanks for the post ( I think). Once more we see the taxpayer purse getting molested. The majority of CAsA attendees certainly did come from Can'tberra, but there was also a couple of Brisbane attendees there as well. So for me to work out the cost accurately is subjective as I don't have access to the CAsA 'books', however I can give some loose calculations based on some rough assumptions as follows;
- Airfares for 75% of attendees; $13,000
- Overnight accommodation for 50% of attendees (remembering that the higher you are ranked the more expensive accommodation you receive) $4,000
- Overnight allowance for 50% of attendees (again the higher you are ranked the more you receive, up to around $500.00 per day) $4,000
- Single day away from home allowance for say another 25% of the attendees; $1,200. I have not included incidentals, cab fares, Skulls blood pressure pills or any small items as such in this calculation.
Total = $22,200!
Now I believe I have been generous towards Fort Fumble with my calculations, but the point is that this was a complete waste of time and taxpayer money for so many CAsA people to attend a barely 3 hour meeting interstate. A number of the attendees absolutely did not need to be there.
This kind of expenditure would have the budget conscious Beaker passing out and screaming out 'mi mi mi mi madness'! And I wonder what mystery bucket of money the CAsArites dipped into to cover this little olly jolly? Either way we the taxpayer paid for this trough dipping exercise.
Best not let Mushroom Truss find out! Being Tony's right hand man during this budget crisis that Australia is facing it would be an embarrassment that he, the Deputy PM, has an aviation portfolio that is pissing away precious taxpayer coin on such a frivolous exercise!
OINK OINK