Garmin drops Aussie weather information on GAR56 units

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Do you realise Australia no longer has a Minister for Transport and a Dept of Transport, responsible for civil aviation?
Aviation now comes under the Dept of Infrastructure and Regional Development with Warren Truss MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development and Jamie Briggs MP Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development.

Tailwheel, at least there is some consistency in this. It shows that successive governments of whatever creed simply don't understand aviation or the implications of what a lack of safety in general, and safety oversight, may have on the countries balance sheet, especially if a 380 or a new Carbonliner end up at the bottom of a smoking impact crater. And GA is a critical revenue earner and your governments have been pissing away potential income by buggerising GA for years. Your international passenger and air freight components are critical revenue streams for your incompetent governments, yet they are prepared to piss that all away by allowing regulatory oversight to diminish to such a poor state that the FAA has considered downgrading Australia's safety rating. Not even the risk of a ban with the subsequent palpable flow on affect which would rob Australia of billions of dollars is enough to motivate any government in recent years to take the axe to CASA and the ATSB, and then restructure and repair the decades of destruction????
Is there something in the water down under that destroys brain cells in politicians? Are these bureaucratic imbeciles really that stupid?? Really??

Oh well, Dick, you may have had good intentions with regulatory reform but it has morphed into a quarter of a billion dollar bastard child of Frankenstein, and the beast continues to grow. And Dick, hate to tell you this but one of the key problems at CASA was also around during your tenure and was stitching you up behind your back way back then, so really what hope do new incumbents at CASA have of making real change when the the old problems still remain?
Hell, before long even YOU won't be able to afford to fly, comply and maintain your whirlybird! And that's saying something mate

[Jack Ranga]

Dick, (and Leady), apologies, what I meant to say was this happened on our watch. In some ways we've let all of the government departments get away with...........

[triadic]

Tailwheel said:

Do you realise Australia no longer has a Minister for Transport and a Dept of Transport, responsible for civil aviation?

Too right I do and it is a disgrace. The last Aviation Minister, I recall was a pilot and now fly's his own chopper. Pity he lost his post due to expense claims etc.

Truss is the man whatever the title of the Dept and he must be lobbied to have these part 61 changes at least postponed until all of the anomalies are sorted out and we can see some benefit from the proposed changes.

Can't wait to see what the Libs do with their review of CASA. I trust the leadership and the Board get the boot. Can't be much worse. The Board should have more aviators on it so at least they know what is being passed across the table!!

[tail wheel]

Truss is the man whatever the title of the Dept and he must be lobbied to have these part 61 changes at least postponed until all of the anomalies are sorted out and we can see some benefit from the proposed changes.

Truss has been in that position before. I think he was trained by John Anderson!

[Creampuff]

You obviously have a very short memory, triadic.

CASA had a Board,

Then it didn’t have Board.

Then the Board was reinstated.

It has had Board members who claimed to have expertise in aviation.

No matter who’s on the Board, a bunch of people will claim that someone else would be better.

But the key point is this: Having a Board and not having a Board has made zero difference, no matter who’s on it.

[Frank Arouet]

Having a board which has the incumbent Director of Aviation Safety on board, (beating his chest), and having that board report to the Minister seems like a waste if the Director of Aviation Safety can report to the Minister himself.

The only board that made any difference to operational matters was the one Dick chaired. He was faced with a directive from (Gareth Evans I think), to bring in user pays which was to be implemented across all the government regulatory institutions. He simply tried to make that transition as painless for us in the industry as possible.

Since then boards have been useless and a waste of money.

The Director of Aviation Safety should report to an independent ministerial appointed Industry Commissioner who reports directly to the Minister.

Any nominations?

[Dick Smith]

Frank. If I remember correctly Allan Wood was the Chairman of CAA when the labor Government introduced so called user pays.

Nearly two years later I said to The then Prime Minister Bob Hawke that the rate they were going we would not have a General Aviation Industry in Australia.

Hawke told me to fix it and made me Chairman.. A number a major changes were made and I introduced a Regulatory Reform programme under the very capable Ron Cooper. Within about six months reforms were introduced that saved tens of millions in costs.. The instruction was simple. - remove every uneccessary cost.

Before I finished my term the then Minister Bob Collins asked me if I would re new

I said no way as I was completely fed up with dopes in the industry - that I was actually helping - attaching me . I also wanted a real life where I was not dreading every day an Airline crash.

I also had quite a capable team in place.

Within months of my retirement Ron Cooper had a serious medical issue and left and CEO Frank Baldwin was forced to resign under trumped up charges because he would not cow tow to the ATCs who demanded Hughes equipment for TAAATS

It was all downhill from that time.

Can you believe it. There are still people who deny that the cost of Aviation Safety regulations must be affordable by those who pay. This has allowed the Canberra Bureaucracy to be completely un accountable and costs to increase and increase.

My time as Chairman with CASA was pretty much a waste of time because Minister John Anderson would not support any reform which could have him in the newspapers. This in practice meant no reform so I quickly left and got on with my life.

What has happened with the regulatory reforms process is nothing short of criminal. Instead of concentrating on removing unnecessary costs they have done the opposite.