"K"- There you go Sarcs – enjoy: you owe me a beer you bugger.
Small sacrifice for such an entertaining read...
Goes to show there is a small line between fiction and reality, w
hich brings me to Part Four…
…Beating up a pilot or fooling a department head, or beguiling the public is one thing; but messing about with the Senate in this manner is beyond the pale and has ended with a MoP…
Historically Senate MoPs (after all the rhetorical bluff & bluster) largely all fizzle out to nothing, the affected parties say their piece, no contempt is found and everyone kisses, makes up and pronounces the virtues of a plural democracy…yada..yada..
However the two MoPs accepted by the Senate and referred to the Privileges Committee…
“…In the context of an inquiry by the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee into aviation accident investigations and Budget estimates hearings of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee in May 2013:
(a) whether disciplinary action was taken against either a witness before the committee or a person providing information to the committee; and
(b) if so, whether any contempt was committed in respect of those matters…”
…carry a great deal more intrigue, especially as this motion was carried twice and the 2nd time by the Chairs of the RRAT Committee themselves...
Which represents a unique situation, as this unified response indicates that there is no politics involved and that the matter is considered of a serious enough nature that it has the full support of the whole committee.
The Committee Chairs in their MoP also took the unprecedented step to:
(2) That, for the purpose of providing further information to the Committee of Privileges, the Standing Committees on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport have access to the records of the committee in the previous parliament.
These records would not only include all the publicly available documentation but also all the ‘in confidence’ submissions, the incamera evidence given and the confidential interagency documents, basically all evidence held under parliamentary privilege.
Already we can see that the Privileges Committee have quite a job ahead of them...
The biggest point is that the RRAT committee are determined that the PC can examine all the evidence totally unencumbered by outside influence and free from all bias.
CCC moment: Long bow I know, cause the AFP are more than likely just going through the motions with their inquiries, but maybe there is another reason for the Chairs to include para (2) above. Not sure of the legal perspective but it is possible that by freeing up all information held under privilege from the AAI inquiry they can then also legally give access to the same evidence to the AFP.
As an example if we go back and truly analyse the chain of final bureau internal emails...
16 - Internal ATSB email- reviewer wanting to look more closely at FRMS and re-interview pilots (dated 24 May 2012), received 10 October 2012;(PDF 535KB)
17 - Internal ATSB email- reviewer indicating they can't deviate at this point and they have to work with what they have (dated 24 May 2012), received 10 October 2012;(PDF 360KB)
18 - Internal ATSB email regarding the inconsistency in safety knowledge of ATSB staff (dated 6 August 2012), received 10 October 2012;(PDF 1597KB)
...we can see that there was a very deep & bitter internal rift within the bureau and some of the anger generated was palpable.
A rehash of the final part of 6 August 2012 email:
Many of my arguments that have been rejected have been ones where I have applied safety management methods and tools, and those arguments have been rejected by a reviewer who looks from a regulatory viewpoint instead of a safety management viewpoint. Yes, regulatory arguments are the easiest to defend, but the maintenance of high reliability, complex systems must rely on so much more than only regulatory compliance. To make useful comments on these matters relies on our belief in, and use of, contemporary safety management theories and methods. To me, this was particularly evident when CASA's Norfolk island audit report came into our hands, and some of the arguments I had tried unsuccessfully to include in the report were subsequently included on the basis of CASA's findings, not mine! When I have to rely on CASA's opinion to persuade the ATSB, How can I claim that the ATSB is independent when it investigates CASA?
The (from for all intents and purposes one pissed off STSI) rant in the (6 August 2012 email) has some very clear messages that (still to this day) have quite obviously fallen on deaf ears in the upper echelons of the bureau & FF (who, it appears, are still hell bent on regulating aviation (big R) to within an inch of its life)...
Simply put, as most of this would have been lost in translation for the AFP, what this STSI is saying is that the ‘white hats’ within the bureau were, very reluctantly, forced to accept the FF version of events (CAIR 09/3) as the final bureau version of events. {Comment: Basically (and thanks to PAIN you can check) the bureau ‘Final Report’ is a fleshed out version of CAIR 09/3.}
In the interest of being at least thorough (even if the AFP don’t give a rat’s arse), I believe that the unnamed STSI (probably former) should have been approached to at least give a statement on his/her version of events in regards to their involvement with the VH-NGA ditching investigation.
I also strongly suspect that this individual will be a late entrant and frontrunner to watch in the ‘MoP Stakes’, all theory of course…
MTF…