godot64:
As for the oft heard complaint that too many CASA staff don't have actual aviation backgrounds, how many would be enough? A third? One half? All of them? Should the DAS' executive assistant have a ATPL?
Actually yes, it would help! it would allow the EA to screen and filter all the crap from reaching the boss and send it where it needs to go.
it is axiomatic in successful organizations that decision making is driven as far down the organization as close to the coal face as possible. That means you need qualified, experienced people - pilots and engineers, at the front line.
They need to be managed by similarly qualified and experienced people, or the poor bastards on the frontline will have to translate and explain every issue they bring to their boss for decision or review. And so on upwards.
To put that another way, populate a command or decision tree with people from a variety of professions - lawyers, arts graduates with history majors, economists with no flying experience and watch the issues get garbled as they go up the chain.
this is the very disease that is killing our entire economy - the belief that anyone can manage anything without having first hand experience of the thing, if only they apply "scientific" management principles acquired via an MBA.
...Hence my concern that there will be a temptation to appoint an aviationally marginally qualified female to help Canberra achieve its oft stated goal of gender equity.