It is now abundantly clear that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority exists only to keep its employees, the Public Service and the Government of the day "Safe" from any responsibility for aviation activity in any form. If Aviation could be totally banned in Australia, then it would be, that is their mentality.
Since total banning of aviation to minimise Government liability would make Australia the laughing stock of the world, their approach is to minimise the posiblity of any risk to themselves by disclaiming all resposibility as far as possible. This is why CASA never "approves" anything, it merely "accepts" things. An approval implies a certain level of fitness for purpose and if something then fails that then either the either the operator failed to comply with the terms of the approval or Horror! The approval was wrongly provided.
Instead to protect itself and the Government, CASA settled on the tactic of:
(a) Forbidding all forms of aviation activities - which is why the legislation and regulations are written in the form "A pilot/operator shall not" banning everything. This is followed by a maze of modifying clauses producing specific exemptions from the blanket ban in certain cases.
When this negative, expensive and wholly unproductive approach produces a nonsensity, they respond by issuing a specific exemption, but of course never a blanket exemption but a time limited specific one to certain individuals at the whim of CASA. This is a recipe for corruption.
By way of example, Rex wlll no doubt be issued a specific exemption for Coober Pedy today, limited of course to the remainder of the Governments term in office.
(b) Armed with a negative structure of regulations CASA deliberately engages in selective enforcement by again refusing to state absolutely what is required to comply, but instead suggesting "acceptable (that word again) methods of compliance". This leaves the authority of its inspectors completely unfettered because what is acceptable to one isn't acceptable to another, depending on the weather, their alcohol intake and time of the month.
This state of affairs was highlighted by a friend who asked for a simple list of compliance points for a Cessna 172 and was told "its too hard" by a CASA inspector.
I could go on. CASA needs a clause in the Act that requires it to foster aviation, period. Without that it will continue to fulfil its legislative purpose by preventing aviation.