Minister calls for ga consensus on change to act
Minister calls for ga consensus on change to act
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER CALLS FOR GENERAL AVIATION CONSENSUS ON UPDATE TO THE CIVIL AVIATION ACT.
AOPA Australia President, Marc De Stoop, and Executive Director, Benjamin Morgan, and AMROBA Executive Director, Ken Cannane, today met with Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack to discuss our support for changes to the Civil Aviation Act and the need for immediate general aviation reforms.
The Minister recognised our industry’s need for change and acknowledged the efforts of AOPA Australia member, Dick Smith, in building broader awareness on the issue. With respect to the proposed changes, the Minister has called for general aviation consensus, to assist the government in this process.
The AOPA Australia through our Australian General Aviation Alliance will now hold a General Aviation Summit in Wagga Wagga on the 4th to 6th June 2018, inviting representatives from all general aviation associations to participate.
The purpose of the Summit will be to develop a consensus proposal for the government on the issue of change to the Civil Aviation Act.
The Summit will be chaired by Mr Geoff Breust, former Managing Director of Regional Express.
The Minister has invited our associations back to Canberra for a follow-up meeting and we are looking forward to working with the government to achieve this important reform for all of general aviation.
BENJAMIN MORGAN
AOPA Australia - Executive Director
AOPA Australia President, Marc De Stoop, and Executive Director, Benjamin Morgan, and AMROBA Executive Director, Ken Cannane, today met with Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack to discuss our support for changes to the Civil Aviation Act and the need for immediate general aviation reforms.
The Minister recognised our industry’s need for change and acknowledged the efforts of AOPA Australia member, Dick Smith, in building broader awareness on the issue. With respect to the proposed changes, the Minister has called for general aviation consensus, to assist the government in this process.
The AOPA Australia through our Australian General Aviation Alliance will now hold a General Aviation Summit in Wagga Wagga on the 4th to 6th June 2018, inviting representatives from all general aviation associations to participate.
The purpose of the Summit will be to develop a consensus proposal for the government on the issue of change to the Civil Aviation Act.
The Summit will be chaired by Mr Geoff Breust, former Managing Director of Regional Express.
The Minister has invited our associations back to Canberra for a follow-up meeting and we are looking forward to working with the government to achieve this important reform for all of general aviation.
BENJAMIN MORGAN
AOPA Australia - Executive Director
Join Date: Apr 1999
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 451
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
This is an exciting development!
Perhaps this time there will be enough gathering momentum to finally effect positive change in order to save GA from extinction in this country.
Can the Iron Ring finally be defeated? They will certainly be working hard behind the scenes to maintain the status quo.
Power to the People!
PG
Perhaps this time there will be enough gathering momentum to finally effect positive change in order to save GA from extinction in this country.
Can the Iron Ring finally be defeated? They will certainly be working hard behind the scenes to maintain the status quo.
Power to the People!
PG
call me a cynic but this is a typical politician response out of the delay delay delay playbook
once GA (chaired by a low cap RPT person?) feel they have a united voice there will be another barrier erected to be satisfied before the minister wants to engage
once GA (chaired by a low cap RPT person?) feel they have a united voice there will be another barrier erected to be satisfied before the minister wants to engage
Simples! Go to summit with Albo in tow. Albo gets up and reiterates the opposition support for the change to the act. Albo stands for a private members bill to change the act....Mc Cormick ...and the CASA...is wedged.
I’ll bet people’s lips were moving during the meeting. I given previous warnings about that.
This beggars belief, government by some amorphous unelected body?
Dear Minister,
Those of us retired and not making daily battle with the world’s worst, unworkable and expensive rules of strict liability in the criminal code, have been to Wagga last week. Why does it fall to AOPA to get yet another meeting going for your edification?
Why don’t you have a ring around instead trying to get everyone in GA to Wagga, an impossible task.
Concensus? This makes no sense, its surely the Government’s job to reconcile competing interests and the variety of views and then make a decision.
No more talk, for heavens sake just make a start to arrest the ever steepening decline of GA. The Part 141/142 training rules are causing huge grief to the last remaining schools, no doubt several of same will fail to make the transition by August and so another spike into the body of GA for no good reason.
Minister for pity’s sake act to save a valuable industry.
Those of us retired and not making daily battle with the world’s worst, unworkable and expensive rules of strict liability in the criminal code, have been to Wagga last week. Why does it fall to AOPA to get yet another meeting going for your edification?
Why don’t you have a ring around instead trying to get everyone in GA to Wagga, an impossible task.
Concensus? This makes no sense, its surely the Government’s job to reconcile competing interests and the variety of views and then make a decision.
No more talk, for heavens sake just make a start to arrest the ever steepening decline of GA. The Part 141/142 training rules are causing huge grief to the last remaining schools, no doubt several of same will fail to make the transition by August and so another spike into the body of GA for no good reason.
Minister for pity’s sake act to save a valuable industry.
AOPA AUSTRALIA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BENJAMIN MORGAN - ON ABC RADIO RIVERINA TODAY
Apologies, apparenty until I have posted some 10 replies or something, I cannot post link URLS. Please use the linke below, removing the space to listen to the radio broadcast.
https://soundcloud .com/abcnsw/benjamin-morgan-on-mccormack
Apologies, apparenty until I have posted some 10 replies or something, I cannot post link URLS. Please use the linke below, removing the space to listen to the radio broadcast.
https://soundcloud .com/abcnsw/benjamin-morgan-on-mccormack
Great interview, Ben.
AOPA and the others will first get "duchessed" - wined, dined and fawned over.. If that doesnt work the department will try divide and rule eg. "we like talking to you RAA, you are so reasonable compared to AOPA".
You will be sucked into discussions of detail; eg. "what do you precisely mean by "benefit to the Australian economy" Mr. Morgan?".
You need to find a good constitutional lawyer to assist you, preferably someone who has worked in PM&C and knows how to write Acts. You need to go in with a set of principles to be enshrined in the Act and make bloody sure they get in there. You have to get the black letter law right and accept no assurances or you will be screwed every which way as in; "well Mr. X may have promised you that but he retired last week and i have no knowledge, etc. etc."
My 2 cents: FAA plain English rules, separate regulation and enforcement, remove criminal penalties and strict liability and of course foster the industry or at least be prevented from killing it.
Then of course the charade of getting it tabled and voted and passed which is another hurdle.
Good luck, the odds are stacked against you.
You will be sucked into discussions of detail; eg. "what do you precisely mean by "benefit to the Australian economy" Mr. Morgan?".
You need to find a good constitutional lawyer to assist you, preferably someone who has worked in PM&C and knows how to write Acts. You need to go in with a set of principles to be enshrined in the Act and make bloody sure they get in there. You have to get the black letter law right and accept no assurances or you will be screwed every which way as in; "well Mr. X may have promised you that but he retired last week and i have no knowledge, etc. etc."
My 2 cents: FAA plain English rules, separate regulation and enforcement, remove criminal penalties and strict liability and of course foster the industry or at least be prevented from killing it.
Then of course the charade of getting it tabled and voted and passed which is another hurdle.
Good luck, the odds are stacked against you.
Sunfish. You are probably correct but the the birds are coming home to roost.
The damage to GA , especially training, is close to terminal. I too predict it will keep getting worse and eventually heads will roll in Canberra.
The damage to GA , especially training, is close to terminal. I too predict it will keep getting worse and eventually heads will roll in Canberra.
Congratulations to Ben, AOPA and all others who see that like the hour glass the sand is slipping away. I wholeheartedly support the meeting of the minds set for Wagga. I caution however that there are snakes in the grass many of whom wear the CASA logo who will resist change using all available angles, lies and deceit to undermine these needed changes...
What constitutes concensus?
Gaining concensus sounds great until you look into what is meant by this call for general agreement. If the Minister fails to define the parameters for his request for consensus then It has no meaning, it is then just a platitude.
The next question is what if there is no concensus to whatever is put to this meeting?
Will that mean that the Minister is off the hook and can just walk away?
Is it reasonable that the various groups can get there opinions ready in a short space of time to properly reflect the views of their members?
no doubt there’s going to be some pretty fast footwork.
The next question is what if there is no concensus to whatever is put to this meeting?
Will that mean that the Minister is off the hook and can just walk away?
Is it reasonable that the various groups can get there opinions ready in a short space of time to properly reflect the views of their members?
no doubt there’s going to be some pretty fast footwork.
Thank you Ben.
I'd be wanting to see a Royal Commission into the behaviour of those who gained massive land banks from The Airports Act and the ministers who enabled them. Remember, it was during Albo's nearly six years as the minster responsible for the federally owned airports that the worst of the gouging, bullying and threatening was bleeding the GA tenants dry while the leaseholders made millions from developing the land and chucking people out of the premises they had built. He was well informed about what was going on and just sat back and let it happen. Don't expect anything from him, or any of them. The last one that made a gesture of standing up to them was Mark Vaile and that took a lot of work.
There is a great deal more threatening the sustainability of GA than CASA.
Obviously a trip to Wagga is out of the question for those of us who need to have our bums in an aeroplane seat to make a living and aren't getting paid to go there. We should still have a voice.
I'd be wanting to see a Royal Commission into the behaviour of those who gained massive land banks from The Airports Act and the ministers who enabled them. Remember, it was during Albo's nearly six years as the minster responsible for the federally owned airports that the worst of the gouging, bullying and threatening was bleeding the GA tenants dry while the leaseholders made millions from developing the land and chucking people out of the premises they had built. He was well informed about what was going on and just sat back and let it happen. Don't expect anything from him, or any of them. The last one that made a gesture of standing up to them was Mark Vaile and that took a lot of work.
There is a great deal more threatening the sustainability of GA than CASA.
Obviously a trip to Wagga is out of the question for those of us who need to have our bums in an aeroplane seat to make a living and aren't getting paid to go there. We should still have a voice.
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: sydney
Posts: 1,469
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Quote:
"Remember, it was during Albo's nearly six years as the minster responsible for the federally owned airports that the worst of the gouging, bullying and threatening was bleeding the GA tenants dry while the leaseholders made millions from developing the land and chucking people out of the premises they had built."
Clare one could say, "never truer words were spoken"
There is however a legal "precedent". Not in an explicit aviation sense, rather against the powers leasing public infrastructure.
A little known court case against a Chinese company who leased Newcastle's port facilities and set about gouging their tenants using remarkably similar tactics the Mc Banks of this world and their development shark mates employed against the users of airports. They lost, in a legal judgement that could so easily be used against airport owners.
There are the "Facts" that the intent of the "Airports Act" has been neatly circumvented. There are the "fact" that the terms of the head leases for secondary airports have been circumvented. There are the "fact" that billions of dollars gouged from hapless users have somehow been disappeared to foreign climes with no benefit at all to the users, or the taxpayers who once upon a time owned those pieces of infrastructure.
When secondary airports were managed by the Federal Airports Commission they made a profit. A modest one perhaps, if you valued the land at todays prices, but the land was owned by the public and the Act reserved it for special purpose use in much the same way as National Parks are reserved for special purpose use. Not as a cash cow for greedy banks and property developers.
There is also the considerable returns a viable GA industry was making and could again make to the national economy if the monkeys could be removed from its back.
"Remember, it was during Albo's nearly six years as the minster responsible for the federally owned airports that the worst of the gouging, bullying and threatening was bleeding the GA tenants dry while the leaseholders made millions from developing the land and chucking people out of the premises they had built."
Clare one could say, "never truer words were spoken"
There is however a legal "precedent". Not in an explicit aviation sense, rather against the powers leasing public infrastructure.
A little known court case against a Chinese company who leased Newcastle's port facilities and set about gouging their tenants using remarkably similar tactics the Mc Banks of this world and their development shark mates employed against the users of airports. They lost, in a legal judgement that could so easily be used against airport owners.
There are the "Facts" that the intent of the "Airports Act" has been neatly circumvented. There are the "fact" that the terms of the head leases for secondary airports have been circumvented. There are the "fact" that billions of dollars gouged from hapless users have somehow been disappeared to foreign climes with no benefit at all to the users, or the taxpayers who once upon a time owned those pieces of infrastructure.
When secondary airports were managed by the Federal Airports Commission they made a profit. A modest one perhaps, if you valued the land at todays prices, but the land was owned by the public and the Act reserved it for special purpose use in much the same way as National Parks are reserved for special purpose use. Not as a cash cow for greedy banks and property developers.
There is also the considerable returns a viable GA industry was making and could again make to the national economy if the monkeys could be removed from its back.
You need to be pushing the "jobs, investment and growth" buttons as justification for change with every sentence. Agree with Wren, asking for "consensus" is the first trap as is asking for the members of the aviation community to be consulted. All it takes then is for a few big egos (eg Gaunty of criminal strict liability fame) to deliberately throw their weight around and consensus vanishes. The Minister can then let his Department "interpret' all the screeching and we end up with a rewrite that either changes nothing or is even worse.
I commend to you the FAA mission statement. "Being the most efficient Aerospace sector in the world" encompasses everything succinctly because that word "efficient" has a concrete meaning (ie.: use of resources to produce biggest bang for a buck) and that includes regulations, enforcement, standards, airports, RA, AOPA,, parachutes - everything, and efficiency can be measured.
P.S. That is why the CASA mission doesn't use "efficient" - it is subject to measurement. They instead talk about being "effective" which is meaningless. Words matter.
I commend to you the FAA mission statement. "Being the most efficient Aerospace sector in the world" encompasses everything succinctly because that word "efficient" has a concrete meaning (ie.: use of resources to produce biggest bang for a buck) and that includes regulations, enforcement, standards, airports, RA, AOPA,, parachutes - everything, and efficiency can be measured.
P.S. That is why the CASA mission doesn't use "efficient" - it is subject to measurement. They instead talk about being "effective" which is meaningless. Words matter.
And don’t forget what the law says in the USA. US Title 49-TRANSPORTATION SUBTITLE VII-AVIATION PROGRAMS PART A-AIR COMMERCE AND SAFETY subpart i-general CHAPTER 401-GENERAL PROVISIONS (here: [USC03] 49 USC 40104: Promotion of civil aeronautics and safety of air commerce ) says:
And getting our airports back would be nice. Sadly, there are too many millionaires siphoning money out of these monopolies - sorry, I mean “privileged assets” - with much more influence than us nobodies will ever have.
§40104. Promotion of civil aeronautics and safety of air commerce
(a) Developing Civil Aeronautics and Safety of Air Commerce.-
The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall encourage the development of civil aeronautics and safety of air commerce in and outside the United States. In carrying out this subsection, the Administrator shall take action that the Administrator considers necessary to establish, within available resources, a program to distribute civil aviation information in each region served by the Administration. The program shall provide, on request, informational material and expertise on civil aviation to State and local school administrators, college and university officials, and officers of other interested organizations.
The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall encourage the development of civil aeronautics and safety of air commerce in and outside the United States. In carrying out this subsection, the Administrator shall take action that the Administrator considers necessary to establish, within available resources, a program to distribute civil aviation information in each region served by the Administration. The program shall provide, on request, informational material and expertise on civil aviation to State and local school administrators, college and university officials, and officers of other interested organizations.
The damage is done, but if any minister gave a toss about aviation they could start by proving it by not allowing any further destruction to the airports, such as listening to the tenants, actually reading submissions about master plans and not just waving them through.
I have been involved in a battle for several years over flood damage to my premises, the insurance company said it was the direct responsibility of the head lease holders for allowing storm water to enter my lease from outside due to inadequate maintenance of the airport site (section 9.2 of their lease, IIRC). The leaseholders admitted liability by finally putting in a functioning drain when the environmental audit gave them no choice but all correspondence regarding replacing the damaged paving and carpets is just ignored since the one where they said it was "my fault" for my building being put in the wrong place (it was the first one in that area and it is subsequent developments and their bitumen areas that caused my crossover to become a torrent). I can't afford to fix it and they know that, I can't be doing with the sheer nastiness and can't afford a lawyer, I shouldn't need one just to get them to comply with the lease and fix the damage they are responsible for. This is the sort of crap we have to put up with all the time. I don't think a lot of people realise the hostility we are up against just to have a lease.
Sorry to be cynical but it's true, there will be a few people with vested interests who will hijack anything like this. Look at some of the "experts" the Meeja run to for a soundbite and expect more of the same.
I have been involved in a battle for several years over flood damage to my premises, the insurance company said it was the direct responsibility of the head lease holders for allowing storm water to enter my lease from outside due to inadequate maintenance of the airport site (section 9.2 of their lease, IIRC). The leaseholders admitted liability by finally putting in a functioning drain when the environmental audit gave them no choice but all correspondence regarding replacing the damaged paving and carpets is just ignored since the one where they said it was "my fault" for my building being put in the wrong place (it was the first one in that area and it is subsequent developments and their bitumen areas that caused my crossover to become a torrent). I can't afford to fix it and they know that, I can't be doing with the sheer nastiness and can't afford a lawyer, I shouldn't need one just to get them to comply with the lease and fix the damage they are responsible for. This is the sort of crap we have to put up with all the time. I don't think a lot of people realise the hostility we are up against just to have a lease.
Sorry to be cynical but it's true, there will be a few people with vested interests who will hijack anything like this. Look at some of the "experts" the Meeja run to for a soundbite and expect more of the same.
Airport leasehold problems and careless government
Clare Props problems stem from one simple principle. If there are no inbuilt incentives for the proper management of a parcel of land, like a government lacking incentive to police their lease conditions, then hoping followed by disappointment will follow.
Isn’t it amazing that we all can see and benefit from free enterprise of which private property rights are an essential element. The whole of our social edifice relies on the inherent fairness of property rights in law and, coupled with judicial and other institutions, the whole has conveyed unprecedented prosperity.
In the field of aviation and airports it as though we are back in the Dark Ages when the Monarch did anything and couldn’t care less for the poor benighted peasants down at the lower levels of precipitous life or death.
As one who based a life and career on my privately owned airport and enjoyed the benefits of the property value by way of an unrestricted use right, and later as a very valuable asset which translated into a retirement fund, I say that government must make freehold available to individual aviation businesses on government owned airports. What would be wrong with private landside property and community runways and parking areas? This should be exactly the same as any other businesses abutting roads.
To invest, grow and develop a business with initial borrowing you need the solidity of freehold. Can this be a reasonable hope for the future? I doubt that because the free enterprise concept is not fully developed in our society as yet.
Isn’t it amazing that we all can see and benefit from free enterprise of which private property rights are an essential element. The whole of our social edifice relies on the inherent fairness of property rights in law and, coupled with judicial and other institutions, the whole has conveyed unprecedented prosperity.
In the field of aviation and airports it as though we are back in the Dark Ages when the Monarch did anything and couldn’t care less for the poor benighted peasants down at the lower levels of precipitous life or death.
As one who based a life and career on my privately owned airport and enjoyed the benefits of the property value by way of an unrestricted use right, and later as a very valuable asset which translated into a retirement fund, I say that government must make freehold available to individual aviation businesses on government owned airports. What would be wrong with private landside property and community runways and parking areas? This should be exactly the same as any other businesses abutting roads.
To invest, grow and develop a business with initial borrowing you need the solidity of freehold. Can this be a reasonable hope for the future? I doubt that because the free enterprise concept is not fully developed in our society as yet.