CASA needs an immediate injection of increased resources.
Noooooooooooooo.
What the industry needs is an immediate repeal of the regulations that require, without safety and risk justification, interactions with the regulator, so that you don't have to wait around for the regulator to make time to charge you to consider and grant approvals, permissions, exemptions blah blah blah to scratch your nose.
What Australia has is a typical paternalistic, symbiotic relationship between the regulator and industry. That means more and more regulations requiring more and more interactions between the regulator and the industry, for which the regulator charges to pay for its existence. It's a self-licking ice cream.
I know this may be inconceivable, but it is possible to have rules that do not require as many interactions with the regulator.
For example, the rules could say that an AOC holder can appoint anyone as Chief Pilot provided the candidate satisfies a list of objective licence, ratings an aeronautical experience criteria. Make sure you're seated: It is possible to have a system in which the appointment of a Chief Pilot does not have to be approved by the regulator. It might actually turn out that the regulatory approval process for Chief Pilots is little more than a regulatory ego trip.
I reckon you have more chance of getting the government to repeal a bunch of regulations that require, without safety and risk justification, interactions with the regulator, than getting the government to fork out more money so that more people can be paid circa $100k to process ARN applications.
Just give the government a list of provisions to repeal. CASA will, of course, foreshadow anarchy and aluminium confetti. Mature adults in the aviation industry know better.