@hiwaytohell its commendable that he is fair and has an open approach to what he does. However, he is responsible, as Director of Safety for Aviation in Australia at a national level; which incorporates public transport, GA, AMO's, ATC, training, CASA etc etc etc....there is a need for a DEEP understanding of safety & risk management and aviation law and principles. Even if he is reasonable and prepared to listen to common sense, how can he possibly formulate opinions or make educated decisions with ZERO aviation or safety experience to fall back upon. If the argument is that he listens to his advisers then they should have cut the middleman out and had one of them in the seat. Introducing such an inherent risk at the core of the national safety authority should be extremely alarming and I doubt there are many safety & risk managers/practitioners that would disagree - remember, introducing risk mitigations and changes should never bring about further risk themselves and in this regard the Aussie public should be concerned. Would you put a fresh PPL without a rating in the left seat of a 747? I think not!