CASA – Words fail.

[Kharon]

NMC - Its seems the FAA has also gone mad.

Interesting interview, I did note that there had been a couple of failed attempts to get the reg passed and enough 'horsepower' in the industry to at least kick up some dust. Ah, democracy at work (well nearly).

[Kharon]

E' hemm.

– Congratulations Ken and AMROBA. Brava.
- Congratulations CASA and thank you. Well done, finally.

Best news article this year.

Industry consultation can and does work very well, what's the old thing about puddings and proof.

[Fantome]

"Best news article this year."

That's as may be, but at least old 'Feelin' Groovy' does end by saying -



“It’s a pity that CASA doesn’t confer with Industry when they intend to raise such a general Instrument, but at least they’ve admitted that there was a conflict. It takes a lot of noise to get CASA to correct issues they create.”

[Sarcs]

Finally a patch of sanity in the lunatic asylum! Although Phearless Phelan, I phear, does highlight the regulator's true philosophy at Albo's bigtop:

Three separate industry identities who have discussed this with us report that one official who is directly involved has openly stated his belief that aviation in Australia should be limited to airline and defence operations.

Too little, too late perhaps!

[Kharon]

Favourite bit – (bite ?).

“I believe some acknowledgement is also owed to a CASA lawyer who has publicly said that he doesn’t believe Australia’s aviation industry is ‘mature enough’ for the introduction of outcome-based regulation.”

Funny ain't it; the rest of the world disagrees, but we are still stuck with the same old prescriptive, Mummy smack rubbish. The hoodoo of Voodoo we all now so well.


Who'll chip in for a couple of rooms at a remote PNG aged care nursing home?

[gobbledock]

The Village Idiot

“I believe some acknowledgement is also owed to a CASA lawyer who has publicly said that he doesn’t believe Australia’s aviation industry is ‘mature enough’ for the introduction of outcome-based regulation.”

So he doesn't agree with the very system he supported and agreed should be introduced? Has he been smoking too much jungle weed? Perhaps his brain cells are deteriorating from overdosing on to much intellectual word wankery? Or has he spent to much time locked in a cigar smoke filled lounge with fellow slipper and gown wearing wordsmith's pondering and musing over life's more sophisticated and conceptual ideas?

Who'll chip in for a couple of rooms at a remote PNG aged care nursing home?

I will. And I will also supply some writng pads and pens where he can write endless amounts of jibberish pony pooh about voodoo, safety concepts, general bollocks and his beloved ICAO. Hell, all he has to do is contribute a couple of bucks and some intellectual wankery up there and he will earn a knighthood like many others!

Nimrods.

[Stan van de Wiel]

[QUOTE][
“I believe some acknowledgement is also owed to a CASA lawyer who has publicly said that he doesn’t believe Australia’s aviation industry is ‘mature enough’ for the introduction of outcome-based regulation.”
/QUOTE]

Without knowing who is responsible for the above quote I can only observe that if this is the case where has the "maturity" gone which allegedly has Australia at the forefront of Aviation. Did the immaturity set in when CASA and it's most recent forerunners decided to take on "micromanagement" of GA. ControlFreaks make poor managers, look at the fiasco of the rewrite of the Regs. Or is this a deliberate safety move which my own immaturity won't let me identify with?

Maybe we could start by identifying the "maturity" within CASA. The CFIT of GA is remote controlled from CB and certainly shows a maturity of manipulating control. To think I and many others have been training an immature australian public to an outcome based standard (without knowing it) and through luck achieved the best standard. 46 years of luck!!! No wonder CASA grounded me for my own good.

[Fantome]

“I believe some acknowledgement is also owed to a CASA lawyer who has publicly said that he doesn’t believe Australia’s aviation industry is ‘mature enough’ for the introduction of outcome-based regulation.”

What is he saying? (Use perplexed Milligan accent. He may as well say 'introduction of appliances')

If he said there's going to be be more and more 'income-based regulation'
bleeding all you mug air operators dry, then many sage heads would nod, knowingly.

[Frank Arouet]

Who'll chip in for a couple of rooms at a remote PNG aged care nursing home?

It was either Cattle Dogs or Chimbu's that invented "payback". I'll chuck in two pigs.

[Kharon]

Short lived happy event

What a week and it's only Tuesday.

Worst news article this year

In effect, CASA’s lawyer is claiming that its officers can do what they like to whomever they like, using the cloak of respectability of “safety” under s9A (1) of the Civil Aviation Act, with impunity and at the discretion and subjective opinions of the officials concerned, with a total disregard to any person’s personal or business rights, no matter how trivial (or negligently false) the alleged “safety” issue might be, and no matter how devastating the effect any such heavy handed action might have on an individual or business. -

Thinks I'll go fishing.

[owen meaney]

“There can be no duty of care imposed on CASA to have regard to the economic interests of the Applicants…”

What does this actually mean?

[Kharon]

Potted version

In concept, it means that when a regulator identifies a 'safety' issue, the economic or any other associated impact should not influence a decision taken to promote a safe outcome. It's a fine principal and; in theory, a very correct one. However. Safety, like veritas has a chameleon like quality under the current administration.

Sunfish - To put that another way, CASA is using a self referential loop to justify itself. Furthermore, just like in Alice in Wonderland, the penalty often comes before the verdict, in the form of shutting down operations so that the subject bleeds to death financially before they can defend themselves.
CASA can do anything whenever and wherever to whoever in the interests of SAFETY. However SAFETY IS WHAT CASA SAYS IT IS.

Apologies to the purists and pedants.

[owen meaney]

Kharon - it means that when a regulator identifies a 'safety' issue, the economic or any other associated impact should not influence a decision taken to promote a safe outcome.

Polar Air case was a safety issue, wasn't it?

[601]

“There can be no duty of care imposed on CASA to have regard to the economic interests of the Applicants…”

They do not have to consider the fact that their decisions will send you broke.

[thorn bird]

Well imagine their effort with "Tiger"
" Lets use our unaccountable power and shut down an airline to take some heat of the Minister"
They did...because the could!!
What amazed me was that "Singapore Inc" didnt turn up with a team of lawyers on an ass reaming exercise, they really do not like getting screwed..especially when money is involved...
Then on quiet reflection, why would they bother, easier to get it back by reaming jetstar or Qantas..what goes around comes around and Asians have very long memories.
What are our regulators in the Scheme of things other than a joke...bunch of dipsticks pissing about..occasionally costing us money but we can get it back in other ways.

[Kharon]

Ghosts of the past.

OM - Polar Air case was a safety issue, wasn't it?

Ain't they all? But; and I've only plucked this 'off the wind', I hear it all began as a routine dust up between a CP who probably knows what he's about and yet another FOI who probably thought he knew better; and, Mummy smacked.

TB - Well imagine their effort with "Tiger".

The tigers tale is almost unbelievable, it should be published as a novel; pure fiction, it would rival some of the most intriguing, imaginative best sellers ever offered. Hell, they'd make it into a movie if only it had a happy ending.

I have sometimes been haunted with the idea that it was an imperative duty, knowing what I know, and having seen what I have seen, to do all that lies in my power to show the dangers and the evils of this frightful institution. Fanny Kemble

It's fair to say that both these episodes have great potential to haunt the future, much as Hamlet's beloved ghost. There have been too many gross errors made in the past, not all of these can be hidden by smoke. Elephants in the room, mills of the Gods and all like that.

[Creampuff]

It's fair to say that both these episodes have great potential to haunt the future …

Indeed.

Mr Butson/Polar did CASA an enormous favour by pursuing Federal Court claims and appeals. We now have a neat compendium of the duties that CASA and its officers don’t have.

Polar and Mr Butson claimed that CASA owed them a common law duty to take reasonable care in the exercise of CASA’s statutory powers. Polar and Mr Butson also claimed that CASA owed them a common law duty not to act beyond power, intending to cause harm to either Polar or Mr Butson, or knowing that their acts were beyond power and that harm to Polar or Mr Butson was foreseeable, or recklessly indifferent (a) to whether their acts were beyond power and (b) to the likelihood of harm to Polar and Mr Butson.

The Federal Court held that the duty as pleaded did not exist.

In all the circumstances, it cannot be said to be open to the applicants upon the [statement of claim] to prove the facts at trial which would constitute a reasonable cause of action in negligence against the respondents. In so far as the [statement of claim] endeavours to plead negligence against the respondents, this pleading should be struck out.

Polar and Mr Butson also claimed that CASA owed them a statutory duty to exercise CASA’s statutory powers lawfully, reasonably and in “good faith” for the purposes for which those powers were given.

The Federal Court held that:

[T]here is no statutory or common law duty of the kind alleged in the statement of claim, to the extent that these paragraphs plead breach of statutory duty. Furthermore, there is no basis for a claim that [Terrence Farquharson, Garry Presneill, Robert Collins, Jim Marcolin, Peter John and Allan Cook] were under any personal duty under the Act that would support a cause of action of this kind against them. The pleading of breach of statutory duty should be struck out in accordance with these reasons.… Further, it is plain enough that there is no tenable basis on which Polar and Mr Butson could bring an action in tort against CASA and the other respondents for breach of a general duty to act in good faith.

Polar and Mr Butson also claimed that CASA owed a common law duty generally to the same effect as one of the above claims, but also involving a common law duty not to exercise CASA’s statutory powers “in such a way as unlawfully and intentionally to interfere with the trade or business” of Polar or Mr Butson.

The Federal Court held that:

[T]he cause of action described as wrongful interference with trade or business interests should be struck out.

Polar and Mr Butson also claimed that Terrence Farquharson, Garry Presneill, Robert Collins, Jim Marcolin, Peter John and Allan Cook were guilty of “misfeasance in public office” because:
(1) their knowledge of the limits of their powers was to be inferred from their position and experience;
(2) their knowledge of the likely consequences of their conduct was similarly to be inferred from their position and experience;
(3) their intention to bring about those consequences was in turn to be inferred from that knowledge, the actions themselves and the “pattern of conduct” described in the claim;
(4) their reckless indifference was to be inferred “from the conduct of CASA and the officers of CASA taken as a whole” as set out in the claim and from the “pattern of conduct” set out in the claim.

The Federal Court held that:

There is nothing that supports the hypothesis that the respondents had the intention or acted with reckless indifference as claimed, and this must be established if the cause of action is to be made out. … The pleadings reveal no more than that CASA and its officers differed with Polar and Mr Butson as to the correct exercise of CASA’s statutory powers and that, by accepting an enforceable voluntary undertaking under the CAA, the matter might be resolved in conformity with CASA’s understanding of its obligations.

Further, the pleadings, as particularised, fall well short of supporting any claim against the individual respondents of misfeasance in public office… The pleading as against the individual respondents is thus fundamentally deficient. Even if Polar and Mr Butson were to establish legal error in the relevant exercises of statutory power, this would do no more than support a finding of deficient administration. …

Accordingly, the applicants’ pleading of misfeasance in public office is embarrassing within the meaning of the Federal Court Rules and should also be struck out.

[All bolding added]

I assume it will be suggested that this outcome occurred because CASA failed to discharge its model litigant obligation and the Federal Court was too stupid, lazy, indifferent or corrupt to notice.

[gobbledock]

Poor old Clark! He gets taken to the cleaner, and his nemesis, Lord Farquarhson gets promoted! Strange days indeed. Bad CASA.

I am having a thought however, and it is a little bit of a drift, but has anyone thought of say taking the CASA dinosaur heirachy, the Minister, maybe the silly CASA board and perhaps a couple of CASA's legal team (yes that means you Flyingfiend) out to an airport, maybe a flight deck, engineering facility or anywhere really that is aviation oriented that excludes the QF Club and Montreal, and try to show them what happens in the real world? You know, the place where noisy planes co-habit with lots of aviation people, even with the odd FOI when they aren't writing parking tickets for an operator having his shoelace untied??

Nah, I thought as much. It's an impossible task. To start with CASA's management would have to get a leave pass from the nursing home. Then
they would have to expend more energy than raising a ballpoint pen. The walk from the terminal carpark isn't any good for them as no FF points are earned from doing that, plus the time taken to undertake this entire task steals time away from their 'core duties' such as watching Poohtube at work, working on the reg deformed program, booking tickets to an international 'aviation and voodoo' conference somewhere in the Bahamas!

Twas worth a thought. I guess at the end of the day it is all:

[Kharon]

Ah, the boss of the Golden West Mafia.

Many times, manfully and diligently have I struggled to resist posting this clip; alas, 'twas for naught.

My lord

[Stan van de Wiel]

Another lawyers picnic

Does any of this have anything to do with Aviation specifically SAFETY. It all appears to have been acted out in courtrooms. It gives new meaning to the subject "airlaw" the number one requisite for safe flight. Forget "principles of flight" or " navigation"

In the Court proceedings was there ever a mention or a hint that this had anything to do with,... forgotten the topic! Ah yes Aviation!

More of a lawyers picnic? THank God for the "adversarial" legal system, we wouldn't know what to do with the truth anyhow.
Strange that CASA as a Gov authority chooses to use the French Law system, allegedly "guilty until proven innocent" when it suits them. Is that what's called ambidextrous?

"serial liars" by Evan Whitton available free on the Internet.

SW. "empty skies are safe skies"