CASA Annual Report 2022-23: Executive Pay Bonanza!
CASA Annual Report 2022-23: Executive Pay Bonanza!
Ever wondered how much Australian Tax Payer money the Executive leadership at the Civil Aviation Safety Authority take home each year?
Take a look at the remuneration paid to key management 2022-23:
Now think about this... over the past 11 years CASA Executives have happily gorged on $34.1million in Australian Tax Payer money and during this time have failed to deliver any meaningful result on pilot medical reform. Whilst in contrast, their international peers in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States reformed their regulatory systems 7 years ago.
With just 32,849 pilots in Australia, each of us have paid over $1,000 in taxes for CASA to deliver 11 years of medical certification reform failure.
Where is the accountability for these wholesale reform failures inside of CASA? Why is there no oversight?
When will our Ministers and Senators start asking the hard but necessary questions regarding this abuse of Tax Payer funding?
Our Parliamentarians should be calling for an immediate RRAT inquiry into this debacle and requesting the meeting diaries and every last document produced by key CASA staff in relation to pilot medical certification reform, so the nation can see just how little has been done in 11 years. It's time to peel back the veil and take a hard long look at the productivity of CASA.
CASA seem to have no difficulty in finding the resources and time for conferences and international travel, they have no issue funding and investing time into Rainbow Skies, Diversity programmes and other non-aviation safety regulatory activities, yet seem to have no time or budget to perform the actual job they are there to do.
The Parliament must take action.
Have I got this wrong? Am I alone in my disgust? Would love to hear everyone's thoughts.
BENJAMIN MORGAN
CEO, AOPA Australia
**Image from the CASA Annual Report 2022-23
Take a look at the remuneration paid to key management 2022-23:
- Pip Spence: $618,254 (CEO/DAS)
- Rob Walker: $325,866 (Regulatory Oversight)
- Jonathan Aleck: 403,488 (Legal)
- Philippa Crome: $387,190 (Executive Manager Corporate)
- Simon Frawley: $290,303 (CFO)
- Chris Monahan: $415,241 (National Operations Standards)
- Andrew Sparrow: $316,823 (Executive Manager Transformation)
- Andreas Marcelja: $341,895 (Stakeholder/Spin Doctor)
Now think about this... over the past 11 years CASA Executives have happily gorged on $34.1million in Australian Tax Payer money and during this time have failed to deliver any meaningful result on pilot medical reform. Whilst in contrast, their international peers in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States reformed their regulatory systems 7 years ago.
With just 32,849 pilots in Australia, each of us have paid over $1,000 in taxes for CASA to deliver 11 years of medical certification reform failure.
Where is the accountability for these wholesale reform failures inside of CASA? Why is there no oversight?
When will our Ministers and Senators start asking the hard but necessary questions regarding this abuse of Tax Payer funding?
Our Parliamentarians should be calling for an immediate RRAT inquiry into this debacle and requesting the meeting diaries and every last document produced by key CASA staff in relation to pilot medical certification reform, so the nation can see just how little has been done in 11 years. It's time to peel back the veil and take a hard long look at the productivity of CASA.
CASA seem to have no difficulty in finding the resources and time for conferences and international travel, they have no issue funding and investing time into Rainbow Skies, Diversity programmes and other non-aviation safety regulatory activities, yet seem to have no time or budget to perform the actual job they are there to do.
The Parliament must take action.
Have I got this wrong? Am I alone in my disgust? Would love to hear everyone's thoughts.
BENJAMIN MORGAN
CEO, AOPA Australia
**Image from the CASA Annual Report 2022-23
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Minister Nothing at the helm so expect exactly that.
I admire your enthusiasm Ben, but King ain’t going to do diddly squat. Not even a cabinet reshuffle would bring change, any overhaul of the authority will still have lines back to a former responsible minister, the now prime minister, they won’t touch it.
CASA is just an out of sight, out of mind piece for the government. Nobody cares one bit. Sadly while we continue to operate on some serious outdated rules, ground and air.
I admire your enthusiasm Ben, but King ain’t going to do diddly squat. Not even a cabinet reshuffle would bring change, any overhaul of the authority will still have lines back to a former responsible minister, the now prime minister, they won’t touch it.
CASA is just an out of sight, out of mind piece for the government. Nobody cares one bit. Sadly while we continue to operate on some serious outdated rules, ground and air.
There is a pretty simple fix. The entire aviation industry needs to start publicly calling on every last person they know to vote anyone other than Liberal/National or Labor/Greens. Whilst everyone keeps playing the Holden/Ford game, little can change. An entirely new political force needs to be applied. Until then, the Bureaucracy is maintaining a stranglehold.
You’re so unkind, Ben. Look at all their achievements:
Work continues apace on Vertiports and ‘e’ taxis.
They’ve let the zealots loose, again, to resume their crusade against commercial pilots with CVD.
They’ve maintained the façade of medical certification “reform” and “evidence-based” medical decision-making. (And it's great to see that one of their very expensive doctors - their spin doctor - appears to have qualified himself to give expert medical evidence to parliamentary inquiries.)
They’ve presided over third world airspace arrangements, resulting in a mid-air collision of IFR aircraft whose mandated on-board equipment set off 4 alerts in the ATC system on the way to the collision. In our third world airspace arrangements, those alerts were and continue to be treated as a “nuisance” because there are no separation standards for IFR aircraft in G.
They’ve maintained the safety standards of air navigation services – for the few that aren't NOTAMd unavailable or capacity-reduced.
The regulatory reform program remains incomplete (expect some Orwellian statement, eventually, to the effect that it was always intended to continue with 1988 regulations and 1998 regulations and exemptions like confetti, forever).
They claim stochastic changes in accident and incident rates as ‘trends’ (and note the passive voice statement: “During the derivation of the 2021–22 results, it was identified the General Aviation sector occurrence trends were incorrectly calculated.”)
Speaking of stochastic and Orwellian, they claim to have “Achieved” the Target of “Improving trend in stakeholder satisfaction from regular surveys”. Under that claimed achievement the Report says: “Our biennial stakeholder satisfaction survey was conducted from April to May 2023 and invited a random sample of 6,600 stakeholders across all major client stakeholder groups. While there was an overall reduction in satisfaction (from 6.3 to 6.1), the survey found that satisfaction increased across most aspects of CASA’s performance since 2020. The overall rating was impacted by frustrations with service delivery due to delays in applications and approvals.” What a great “achievement”! And of course CASA’s going to be perceived as doing “at least a reasonable job” by lots of ordinary members of the public: Luckily for them and CASA, they don’t know how little causal connection there is between CASA’s activities and safety.
Most importantly, they’ve maintained their Qantas Chairman’s Lounge membership with absolutely no perceived conflict of interest with their duties as safety regulators of Qantas. And there couldn’t be a conflict, anyway, because Qantas has never once contravened any aviation safety rule. That’s what a great job CASA’s doing!
Work continues apace on Vertiports and ‘e’ taxis.
They’ve let the zealots loose, again, to resume their crusade against commercial pilots with CVD.
They’ve maintained the façade of medical certification “reform” and “evidence-based” medical decision-making. (And it's great to see that one of their very expensive doctors - their spin doctor - appears to have qualified himself to give expert medical evidence to parliamentary inquiries.)
They’ve presided over third world airspace arrangements, resulting in a mid-air collision of IFR aircraft whose mandated on-board equipment set off 4 alerts in the ATC system on the way to the collision. In our third world airspace arrangements, those alerts were and continue to be treated as a “nuisance” because there are no separation standards for IFR aircraft in G.
They’ve maintained the safety standards of air navigation services – for the few that aren't NOTAMd unavailable or capacity-reduced.
The regulatory reform program remains incomplete (expect some Orwellian statement, eventually, to the effect that it was always intended to continue with 1988 regulations and 1998 regulations and exemptions like confetti, forever).
They claim stochastic changes in accident and incident rates as ‘trends’ (and note the passive voice statement: “During the derivation of the 2021–22 results, it was identified the General Aviation sector occurrence trends were incorrectly calculated.”)
Speaking of stochastic and Orwellian, they claim to have “Achieved” the Target of “Improving trend in stakeholder satisfaction from regular surveys”. Under that claimed achievement the Report says: “Our biennial stakeholder satisfaction survey was conducted from April to May 2023 and invited a random sample of 6,600 stakeholders across all major client stakeholder groups. While there was an overall reduction in satisfaction (from 6.3 to 6.1), the survey found that satisfaction increased across most aspects of CASA’s performance since 2020. The overall rating was impacted by frustrations with service delivery due to delays in applications and approvals.” What a great “achievement”! And of course CASA’s going to be perceived as doing “at least a reasonable job” by lots of ordinary members of the public: Luckily for them and CASA, they don’t know how little causal connection there is between CASA’s activities and safety.
Most importantly, they’ve maintained their Qantas Chairman’s Lounge membership with absolutely no perceived conflict of interest with their duties as safety regulators of Qantas. And there couldn’t be a conflict, anyway, because Qantas has never once contravened any aviation safety rule. That’s what a great job CASA’s doing!
Last edited by Lead Balloon; 26th Oct 2023 at 21:13.
From the Aviation Industry’s perspective CAsA is a failed state. For those responsible for the debacle it’s a very lucrative place to be, so why change such a lovely trough.
Gutless governments of all persuasions just don’t have the fortitude or interest to scrap the corporate nonsense and make Aviation a Department with a responsible Minister.
Until there is a major upheaval in the democratic system the Industry is stuck with that destructive bastard corporation.
Over the decades of its existence the cost to this nation is incalculable.
A national disgrace of the first magnitude.
ps. I see in todays news the Finance Department suggests more taxes to keep Oz going. You never hear any talk of cutbacks to bureaucracies to introduce efficiencies and save money. Or really get stuck into stopping the unbelievable rorts that so many agencies let happen.
Never mind ….billions to squander. Plenty more taxpayers out there.
Gutless governments of all persuasions just don’t have the fortitude or interest to scrap the corporate nonsense and make Aviation a Department with a responsible Minister.
Until there is a major upheaval in the democratic system the Industry is stuck with that destructive bastard corporation.
Over the decades of its existence the cost to this nation is incalculable.
A national disgrace of the first magnitude.
ps. I see in todays news the Finance Department suggests more taxes to keep Oz going. You never hear any talk of cutbacks to bureaucracies to introduce efficiencies and save money. Or really get stuck into stopping the unbelievable rorts that so many agencies let happen.
Never mind ….billions to squander. Plenty more taxpayers out there.
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Cutting back on red tape could save billions. However those that generate red tape, ensure compliance and worship at the alter of regulation, would sadly be out of a job.
