Plain English anyone
If any one wonders why CASA cannot produce a simple and plain set of safety standards, you only have to look at the CASA submission to the safety review to find the answer. It is amazing that this convoluted piece of nonsense was allowed to see the light of day without someone taking a red pen to the draft. It is clearly written by a lawyer, with its dense, turgid and impenetrable style. No prize for guessing who that lawyer may (004wercras got it right I think).Why use one word when you can use 10? Why use plain words when you can use archaic legal jargon that gives your submission “gravitas” (not).
Take a look at the sentence structure. Full of parenthetical phrases that qualify every word written. By the time you get to the end of a sentence, you forget what it was about. I particularly like the 91 word sentence in paragraph 3.4 which says (I’m not quite sure what it says but it sounds impressive):
“But whilst other considerations will properly be subordinated to any safety-related considerations with which the former are irreconcilably inconsistent, where two (or more) alternative courses of action are open to CASA, each equally conducive to optimal safety outcomes, but one less burdensome or economically problematic than another for a person whose rights, interests or legitimate expectations will be affected by CASA’s actions, CASA is effectively obliged to entertain and, in the absence of any other legitimate and legally sustainable reasons for not doing so, to adopt the less burdensome option”. To be sure!
As can be seen for the quote above, sentences in the submission run on for 100s of words. Whole paragraphs consist of a single sentence. Unbelievable. In para 4.2 a sentence is 109 words long. In paragraph 4.8 a sentence is 97 words long. In paragraphs 5.3 and 6.13 the paragraphs are just one long sentence, each with more than 170 words. The submission is riddled with such examples. The average sentence in the submission is probably 40 or 50 words long. How can this be? Doesn’t anyone in CASA have ANY idea about writing in simple English. Do they just allow the lawyers to write what they want without any check for sense, grammar or comprehensibility. Given the fact one of the lawyers in CASA was Australia’s representative in Montreal many years ago, it is perhaps not surprising that the submission is written as if it were a preamble to a Convention. See paragraph 6.13 where the CASA is “assiduously assuring” transparency and “developing, implementing and continually refining ‘pre-decisional’ review processes”. Check the wonderful linguistic symmetry in paragraph 91 where the Review Terms of reference are said to “contemplate a multitude of multifaceted, timely and, in certain cases, contested and understandably controversial issues”. But CASA acknowledges that “the preparation of adequately developed responsive comments that are, at once, concise and cogent has been a daunting task”. And CASA clearly has failed miserably in this task.
And obviously no one bothered to correct the submission for errors - no doubt they were too busy making important policy decisions. See for example para 2.4 “All these educative are to be performed...”. What does this mean? Seems they omitted the word “functions” after educative - but who knows? And look at para 5.3 (that wonderfully succinct sentence that consists of 173 words - “the volume of material that may bare on a round consideration of these issues”. Surely they meant “that may bear”? But perhaps “bare” is correct after all, given that it means “naked” or “nude” - just as this submission is naked or nude of any meaningful content. And what is a “round consideration”? Is it different from an ordinary consideration or a square consideration (at least square rhymes with bare).
So do not wonder why CASA can’t prepare standards in plain simple English. Just read this submission and you will have your answer why they can't.