11-01-2015, 12:55 PM
Well I have just spent nearly a working week in the belly of the beast. 3 days to be precise in Aviation House participating in a workshop on the risks facing small aircraft operators. This was aimed primarily at Part 135 operators, those who will be in the future that is.
An introductory talk by Jonathan Aleck who is acting DAS at present which emphasised the "10 Commandments" referred to on page 1 of this thread. Lots of stressing that there is change afoot in CASA with a rather lawyers take on the Forsythe report, that it was prepared for the government and not CASA. I think my note at this stage was "CASA propaganda". However, I digress. It was a very interesting workshop and I met some very interesting CASA staff who expressed ideas I did not expect to hear from CASA.
I do now have a much better understanding of one of the major problems with regulatory reform in Australia. To put it succinctly, the problem is whether you introduce all of the changes at once or piece by piece. If the former you risk having a situation where nobody is across all of the new legislation (by that I mean the industry) and confusion can reign; if the latter then the new legislation has to mesh with the old stuff until such time as you can get rid of the old where you can then tidy up the new. Remember, the format of the new legislation cuts across the old so that what you are introducing does not exactly replace what you can take out of the old.
It is fair to say that all of the participants from industry were sceptical but by the end of the 3 days there was a feeling of some hope that there is a new broom slowly going through CASA but with acknowledged problems in some offices.
An introductory talk by Jonathan Aleck who is acting DAS at present which emphasised the "10 Commandments" referred to on page 1 of this thread. Lots of stressing that there is change afoot in CASA with a rather lawyers take on the Forsythe report, that it was prepared for the government and not CASA. I think my note at this stage was "CASA propaganda". However, I digress. It was a very interesting workshop and I met some very interesting CASA staff who expressed ideas I did not expect to hear from CASA.
I do now have a much better understanding of one of the major problems with regulatory reform in Australia. To put it succinctly, the problem is whether you introduce all of the changes at once or piece by piece. If the former you risk having a situation where nobody is across all of the new legislation (by that I mean the industry) and confusion can reign; if the latter then the new legislation has to mesh with the old stuff until such time as you can get rid of the old where you can then tidy up the new. Remember, the format of the new legislation cuts across the old so that what you are introducing does not exactly replace what you can take out of the old.
It is fair to say that all of the participants from industry were sceptical but by the end of the 3 days there was a feeling of some hope that there is a new broom slowly going through CASA but with acknowledged problems in some offices.