Kharon - The potted version:-there was a plan to subsume ATSB into CASA. From a simple financial premise it makes some sense; it also removes the 'independent' ATSB thorn from the CASA rump. It explains why CAIR 09 was drafted, why the incoming MoU was used rather than the 'existing'; why ATSB was hugg-mugga with CASA and the 'spirit' of cooperation was embraced. There would be bonuses, applause and total control of 'investigation' resulting. This would need some 'political' support, but as we all know Albo was a great fan of McComic and would support any notion presented, provided it took 30 seconds or less to pass over his desk. Food for thought?, ain't it though. MTF on this, methinks.
A wise old knuckledragger once said: A good mate of mine who has been a CP a couple of times over and then a white hat FOI; over a few beers one day mentioned that after the Lockhart River tragedy & the subsequent fall-out (embarrassingly revealed in both the ATsB report and the Coroner’s inquest) - the edict from above was that a grand master plan -GMP(2) - had been hatched to subsume the ATsB/BASI.
At the time I did question how such a GMP(2) would be allowed under the auspices of ICAO Annex 13 & the relatively freshly minted TSI Act. My FOI mate said that it is possible because the Kiwis had been doing it for years very successfully and without ICAO - it seems - passing one comment over the arrangement.
He finished by making the prediction that if this GMP(2) were to succeed it would be the beginning of the end for a once thriving GA industry in Oz.
Fast forward to the PelAir inquiry hearing 15 February 2013 and on the subject of the 2010 MoU provisions & reports we get this contribution to the debate from Dr Aleck:
Dr Aleck : …I was very closely involved in the development of the MOU and the situation that preceded it. If I could just say something that might put some context for both Senator Fawcett's question and Mr McCormick's answer, it might help a bit. Firstly, the rationale for the new MOU was to create an environment in which, if I may put it this way, as much information as appropriate could be exchanged between the agencies. The motivating factor at the time had far less to do with any concerns on the part of the ATSB with information CASA was not providing to them but rather information that the ATSB in the past had not provided to CASA.
The fact that the provisions read the way they do reflects a very appropriate form of reciprocity, in which the ATSB under its new leadership said, 'Yes, we will provide you with more information, and we expect you to provide us with the same.' In the spirit of that arrangement, and I agree it probably should be read largely, the question should that a default position should be: 'We'll give you as much as you possibly can and then you decide when we've given you too much.' By the same token, there comes a point where the question has to be asked: 'Is this relevant?' I do not have it in front of me at the moment, but I think the provision talks about reports. To be sure, there was a report there because it took the form of a report, and that is what Mr McCormick asked for. It is quite conceivable that this information could have been developed within CASA in a form that did not take the form of a report, and that would be playing smart: 'We'll put it in this form so it doesn't go there…
Here is the full (un-potted) version in pictures…
Now if we then go back to the Ferryman quote…
“..This would need some 'political' support, but as we all know Albo was a great fan of McComic and would support any notion presented, provided it took 30 seconds or less to pass over his desk…”
The McComic appointment by the Murky Machiavellian team was indeed a masterstroke - in M&M’s other GMP(1) to decimate the GA (IOS) industry - but so too was the appointment of Beaker as CC to the bureau. A position that Beaker was vastly under-qualified for, especially considering that over 90% of all ATsB investigations are generated from aviation accidents/ incidents and neither one of the two other (part time) commissioners had come from an aviation background (i.e. boats/trains) – but he did have a head for figures and a history of spitting out weasel words if & when required...
Examples (ref: Hansard ATSB 22/10/12):
Bean-counting Bea-Cur:
Senator FAWCETT: Did you have an underspend in your budget this year, last year or the year before?
Mr Dolan : There have only been three complete financial years now. In the first year—in the first of my years of stewardship of the organisation—we had a slight underspend. In the last two years we have had slight overspends, but always within less than one per cent of our allocated budget.
Senator FAWCETT: You have not considered outsourcing any of the work or insourcing extra capacity to expedite the production of reports?
Mr Dolan : Our resources are largely tied up in maintaining our existing investigative capability, who are permanent staff of the organisation. We have a longstanding view that in almost all circumstances it is better to have, if possible, the range of expertise available to us on a permanent basis and therefore immediately available than to rely on potentially risky external outsourcers.
Senator FAWCETT: I am not talking about normal operations. I am talking about a situation where you have a budget underspend and a clear excess of work. Was it even considered? That is all I am asking.
Mr Dolan : In that small underspend, no, we did not consider it.
Bea-Cur on – ‘Beyond all sensible Reason’ (i.e. non-transparent love-in approach):
Senator FAWCETT: …Even if it is only for one in 1,000 flights and your probability of occurrence is very low, given the cost of action is also very low, why does your process exclude consideration of something that to the common man in the street seems like common sense? Why are we not seeing logical, reasonable recommendations coming out of ATSB reports to an address in this case two things, either of which probably would have prevented the accident?
Mr Dolan : There are two things there and I will go to the question of recommendations before I get to the specifics of your question. The ATSB at the point where it became independent of the Department of Infrastructure and Transport also got a shift in its powers in relation to the making of recommendations which raised the ante with recommendations and their significance. There is a legal requirement to respond to each of the recommendations we make. In recognition of that we set up the system of identifying safety issues that said there needs to be a critical or a significant safety issue before we will explicitly use that power to make a recommendation and require a response, and we would generally limits recommendations to those sorts of things. What you are talking about we would in our normal framework, given what you said about likelihood and consequence, deal with as a safety issue without going to recommendation. That is the context: it is still there but your question remains.
The answer is we assessed the facts of the information made available in the course of the flight, the number of opportunities to receive information and to absorb it. We said that that did not seem to indicate that there needed to be any change to the system. That is a matter that others based on those facts could form different views on, but the view we formed was we did not see anything that needed to be done to enhance that system.
There was also the Bea-Cur ego/confidence that his own waffle would be more than enough to put down any potential Senate (IOS) up-rising…
"...At the simplest level, the answers to the Senator's questions are straightforward - and a fair amount of the information is publicly available.
We are prepared to answer them in whatever forum they arise (with the exception of anonymous rumour sites and some tendentious bloggers)..."
No IMHO there is much to like about the BRB Xmas hypothesis…
MTF with Part two including the originally hidden CAIR 09/3, the cunningly crafted 2010 MoU & the attempt to obfuscate the Pel-Air duck-up…
I’ll be back…