Hercules Deploys Aboard USN Aircraft Carrier

“One of the major complaints against the Department continues to be flight standards regulations. Many are considered to be out of date, or unnecessary or contradictory, or actually endangering safety while new ones are too slowly developed for such a dynamic industry. A Flight Standards Tribunal will be established of people drawn from the aviation industry and consumers, to recommend to the Secretary of the Department the need to review any or all of the existing standards, or to consider complaints from individuals or groups on the contents or application of the standards. ”

I can think of many people in the industry who would love the opportunity to be able to have a real chance to work with Flight Standards in remodelling the mass of outdated regulations that presently restrict the industry. If Flight Standards wishes to defend their present structure they may well care to explain why so many dispensations are given IF their regulations are viable and effective in the first place!

The above-mentioned Tribunal will report to Parliament on the response of the Secretary and the Department to those recommendations and on the level of consultation with and accountability to the industry on flight standards.

On cost recovery, the Opposition supports the basic premise of user pays but only on the full basis of the DofA becoming vastly more efficient. Indeed the document goes so far as to say that cost recovery should only be related to services offered and used and will not handicap the aviation industry by attempting to recover previous expenditures which has been unwarranted or superfluous. This would obviously gladden the hearts of those trying to make a living from GA when they are presently asked to foot the bill for such questionable political pork barrels as Brisbane Airport and the rash of control towers that have sprung up throughout NSW recently.

Probably the most dramatic divergence from present Government policy though is in the realm of the airlines. The Opposition would move to entirely sell off Australian Airlines and a 49% shareholding in Qantas. The Opposition argues that TAA, now Australian Airlines, was formed some forty years ago when air travel was in its relative infancy serving a nation of 8 million people. Now with twice the population and a vastly developed air transport system the Opposition believes it is time that the Government owned domestic airline stood on its own commercial feet. Shares would be offered on a preferential basis to existing staff members and the relative superannuation funds while legislation would be enacted to ensure that no person or specific group could control more than 10% of the shares. This would effectively stop Ansett, for instance, buying a majority shareholding and thus forming a domestic monopoly.

The Opposition would also move to scrap the existing Two Airline Policy in favour of a regulated form of competition in preference to outright deregulation. Mr Lloyd points out that all four Labor States have backed similar proposals before the May enquiry into the future of the TAP and that the May enquiry itself is expected to hand down a similar opinion.

The policy on Qantas suggests limiting its public share offering to 49% of available stock with all shareholders being of Australian nationality. This is so Qantas would not be unduly manoeuvred during bilateral traffic negotiations and so that the carrier would be fully available in event of a national emergency. The Opposition would also restore Qantas’ interlining rights (which they took from OF in 1979 without explanation) and would investigate Qantas operating alongside the domestics on certain regional offshore routes providing Qantas had a comparable measure of domestic uplift out of Darwin and Perth to the eastern States.

It is probably from GA though that the strongest support will come. The previously mentioned Tribunal and independent investigation of the DofA is just what GA has been calling for for some time now. The reassessment of the role GA plays in funding cost recovery, which GA contends is largely for the benefit of RPT operators, would go a long way to ensuring that the right people, namely the airlines, are paying for their services rather than the other way around. The Opposition would also move to introduce an Experimental category of aircraft certification which would greatly strengthen the struggling homebuilt and ultralight sector. Also of great benefit would be the distinct separation of private GA from commercial GA, something that aviation bodies have been pressing for for some time now without much success.

Irrespective of how you feel about the proposed sale of the airlines, the single most important statement in the policy document could well be the stated change of emphasis between the DofA and GA from one of conflict and antagonism to one founded, via the Tribunal, upon understanding and genuine consultation. One can live in hope.