From wikipedia:
With the Federation of the Australian colonies into a single nation, one of the first acts of the new Commonwealth Government was the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, otherwise known as the White Australia policy, which was a strengthening and unification of disparate colonial policies designed to restrict non-White settlement. Because of opposition from the British government, an explicit racial policy was avoided in the legislation, with the control mechanism being a dictation test in a European language selected by the immigration officer. This was selected to be one the immigrant did not know; the last time an immigrant passed a test was in 1909.
Perhaps the most celebrated case was Egon Erwin Kisch, a left-wing Czechoslovakian journalist, who could speak five languages, who was failed in a test in Scottish Gaelic, and deported as illiterate.
The High Court ultimately overturned the decision (on the basis that Scottish Gaelic was not a European language...)
So Australia has 'progressed' to the point at which the control mechanism for pilots, who are demonstrably competent in all respects, is a vision test selected by a bureacrat.
I find it exquisitely ironic that a person whose skin colour would, in the past, have resulted in him being subjected to a test that conveniently justified, on appallingly irrelevant racial grounds, the person's exclusion as a citizen of Australia - Can't write in Scottish Gaelic, don't you know old boy? Not the kind of chap we can have around here old boy! - is now determining the tests that will discriminate on the basis of colour perception abilities that have no relevance to the fitness of a person to be pilot.
As to the letter, the paraphrasing provides an insight into the thinking of the author.
CASR Part 67 clearly identifies the process that is required to be carried out ...
A tip contained in the first textbook I was told to read at law school: Don't use the word "clearly". If something is clear, it will be clear.
... a relevant test determined by CASA that simulates an operational situation.
That's not what regulation 67.150(6)(c) says.
That regulation says (in fact? clearly?) that a person who does not satisfy (a) or (b) must instead demonstrate that he or she meets the applicable standard by:
... correctly identifying all relevant coloured lights in a test, determined by CASA, that simulates an operational situation.
Note that, contrary to Mr F's letter, the word "relevant" in the CASRs to which he refers does not apply to the "test". Rather, and very importantly, the word "relevant" applies to the word "lights".
The person has to "correctly identify all relevant coloured lights in a test ... that simulates an operational situation." That sentence would continue to make sense if it said the person has to correctly identify all "relevant lights" in a test, but wouldn't continue to make sense if it said the person has to correctly identify all "relevant coloured" in a test.
The requirement is
not that the person has to identify the colour of relevant lights. Rather, the test is that the person has to identify all relevant coloured lights.
So, for example, the person has to be able to identify the fact that the coloured light 'over there' indicates the undercarriage is not down and locked, and that the coloured light 'over there' indicates the cabin pressure is decreasing at a high rate. There is
no requirement for the person to know what the colours of each of those lights happen to be or that they happen to be different (if they are).
That interpretation is consistent with the safety intent of the legislation.
If CASA 'determines' a test whose aim is to find out whether a person can identify and distinguish between the colours of lights, CASA is no different to the administrators of tests requiring someone to write in Scottish Gaelic.