Eddie and Aussie,
Once again, Sunfish has it nailed.
Sunfish (among other things, ex-Ansett engineering) and the rest of us operate in the real world of aviation, I have no idea what you two do. The "Twilight Zone" perhaps??
Maybe, if you are employed (self or otherwise) in the industry, you have had a charmed life. Or maybe it is too much wakkybakky, whatever, but something like 22 inquiries/Royal Commissions/etc. in 28 years, more or less uniformly critical, can't be all wrong??
Including the longest running Parliamentary inquiry since Federation.
Airworthiness-wise, we have, without question, the world's most prescriptive and inflexible, complex, convoluted and contradictory rules on the face of the planet --- and getting worse.
It is NOT "low labor costs" that have driven all but a small "political" residual of "Part 42/145" work offshore. Qantas didn't build the biggest hangar on KLAX just for somewhere to hang a Qantas sign.
CASR Part 61/141/142 has been a godsend --- for NZ/Canada/etc. as it has put AUSTRALIA out of the competition for airline pilot training, with a rump only remaining. As for lowly PPL training, that has been almost extinguished.
The small local town/country flying school has, as a common feature of a town, gone.
Fuel sales speak for themselves, increasingly, fuel availability is getting scarcer, an inevitable outcome of the fall-off in sales.
But you ain't seen nuttin yet!! Under the present "program" all the remaining rules will be made "in CASA's image", with not even lip service to cost, industry viability, and certainly not any kind of OBPR compliant process --- much less the slightest consideration for international harmonization.
Without going into detail, in the last couple of days, it has been brought home to me just how out of step Australia is, not only with NZ/US/Canada/EASA but every national authority (NAA) in our region.
To the crippling cost of the aviation sector in Australia.
Indeed, if I was setting up in the component overhaul business in AU, I wouldn't even bother with CASA, I would just set up under the FAA framework.
Over several decades of continuous economic expansion in Australia, what "modern technology based" sector has had anything like the contraction in aviation. Is there such a thing as a "continuous dis-improvement program"??
Tootle pip!!