TAAAF Says Now is the time for Government to act

The Australian Aviation Associations’ Forum (TAAAF) met in Sydney in November to consider a range of urgent aviation issues.

In considering the Government’s performance against its 12 key aviation election commitments, TAAAF scored the government as having delivered around 40% of its commitments.

A key issue noted was the lack of drive and commitment to act urgently on aviation – even judged by the Government’s own promises. In particular, the Forum expressed concern at the lack of a Government response to the Aviation Safety Regulation Review. The Review was seen as a blue-print for the reform of CASA to make it an effective, efficient, fair and trusted regulator.

It called on the Minister to respond urgently to the Forsyth Review, to finalize Board appointments to ensure the CASA CEO is supported by a strong Board reflective of the interests of the industry, and to issue CASA with a new letter of strategic direction under the Civil Aviation Act.

The appointment of Jeff Boyd to the CASA Board was warmly welcomed but it is of ongoing concern that the CASA Board still has three vacancies, which is seen as holding back the reform of CASA. It also welcomed the appointment of a new CEO but clearly indicated that significant challenges lay ahead in the reform of CASA and in bringing about badly needed improvements as highlighted in the independent Forsyth Report.

With regard to the Forsyth report the Forum strongly supported the return to a three tier regulatory system to facilitate the drafting of simple operational rules. The Forum rejected the current CASA move toward the use of non-regulatory measures such as advisory material, policy, manuals and forms as compliance requirements for operators and pilots. It also strongly supported the introduction of key quality assurance mechanisms within CASA, including a merit decision appeal process; again as identified in the Forsyth report.

The Forum called on the Government to immediately establish a moratorium on all CASA regulatory development work until such time as the new CEO is fully operational, the CASA Board is appointed and the Government has made a clear response to the Forsyth Report. In particular, CASR Part 61 should immediately be suspended to prevent further damage to the industry and a joint industry/CASA taskforce appointed to apply the principles of sound regulatory development.

CASR Part 61 was seen as a serious problem and not acceptable to the industry in its current form. It was identified as a threat to the viability of some sectors and significant numbers of operators. Additionally there is clearly confusion within the regulator about the implementation of the rule-set and a lack of consistent interpretation and education.

Noting the start of the bushfire season, the Forum supported calls for the creation of an offence for any unmanned aerial system (UAS) to be deployed at a fire-ground by a member of the public not under the control of the relevant fire agency, with serious penalties of the order of $50,000 for any instance.