Paul Phelan summarises the landscape Skidmore inherits:
Reform of aviation regulation in Australia is further from becoming a reality than it has ever been since the need was first acknowledged and addressed 24 years ago. That is the collective view of senior industry figures who have been involved in the process almost since its inception.
The prime concepts driving the project that became known as the Regulatory Review Program (RRP) have always been:
Outcome-based rather than prescriptive regulation, which is the basis of aviation regulation in all other aviation-significant democracies;
Alignment with overseas regulatory structures so that Australia could achieve true bilateral agreements with the leading overseas aviation authorities;
‘Plain English’ rules that are easy to understand, administer and enforce;
Objective evaluations of cost benefit and safety relevance to eliminate wasteful and un-necessary administration;
Compliance in rulemaking with Australian law, government guidelines; international (ICAO) standards; and
Two-tier regulation to replace the (then) existing multi-layer regulation comprising the Civil Aviation Act, Regulations and Orders, policy documents, individual rulings and permissions, exemptions and other instruments.
Although endlessly repeated in political and administrative rhetoric right through the regulatory reform process, these goals have been almost completely ignored by well-placed CASA dissidents.
And worse, political pressure is now on Director John McCormick to rush the remaining legislation through Parliament regardless of its blatant non-compliance with founding principles.
This situation is no accident; it can only spring from deliberate corporate defiance of existing law, international standards, government directives and guidelines, and executive directions.
To hell with the rules | Pro Aviation