I don't usually write on this forum and I do not have any evidence to support the thread above. What I do know is this.
Major regulatory reform has been going in this country for literally 20 years with an incredible expenditure applied. This expenditure represents the most obscene incompetence at taxpayers expense. Yet the Senate Estimates committee do not have any realistic approach as to how to deal with the situation that has been before us for so long. Agencies are routinely summoned to the Senate Estimates to detail their reports. Usually this is the particular Commissioner, CEO and at most his off-sider. Yet the last U-Tube I looked at showed CASA with 10-15 people present probably more sitting in the background, NONE OF WHOM WERE ABLE TO COMPETENTLY answer the questions asked by the Senators without waffling, "refer that to my colleagues for a response," or "we will have to take that on notice Senator because we do not have that information to hand!!!!!" Words fail me. These people are being paid in the region of $180,000 plus to "not know." They even have a group of lawyers permanently employed in the organisation who are paid even more to "not know!" The current Australian documentation is in quite a mess and has been for ages. The number of "Instruments," Notices of Rule-Making and Exemptions is positively ridiculous. Why are these items not in the main-stream documentation? The problem now is the younger generation coming up the line, through no fault of their own actually don't know any different, because the "mess" is all that they have ever seen, so they think it is normal. It isn't normal. We are laughed out of town by overseas aviation agencies. We cannot even get our documentation to be all the same size and Airservices Australia are totally incapable of getting the ERSA into manageable sizes so that we are not carrying several States we do not need in our flight bag on every flight. The ERSA from my military days used to be a thin document that slid comfortable in the leg of your flight suit for when you needed it. It certainly doesn't now! Regulatory reform? The only realistic way we are going to get on top of this is completely disband CASA and raise a new section in the Department of Transport under the direct control of a Minister with a totally brand new staff recruited from NZ/UK/Canada and the USA. I am about to hand in my wings anyway and give it all away. I have had so many near misses with ultra-lights flying contrary to the circuit direction at CTAFs it is only a matter of time before a large aircraft is brought down or even I am brought down probably with a "pilot error" tag stuck on my headstone afterwards. I hope the Senate Estimates are able to work through that properly when it happens.
gcafinal,
I had to laugh when I read this. I had this exact conversation yesterday with similarly minded individuals. We were playing "If i were king for a day". We came to the same conclusion. We simply disband CASA effectively immediately, get someone from the FAA, NZ and Canada, cross out NZ regs as the title and write Australian regs and start afresh tonight at midnight. And it flows from there...
Cheers
CB