Civil Aviation Corp Unveiled

The move away from one monolithic government department handling aviation has been mooted for some time. The then Aviation Minister, Mr Kim Beazley, alluded to the benefits to be had by breaking up the DofA back in November 1984 at the GAA’s Essendon AGM.

Ironically, it was at this very conference that Dick Smith chose to launch his now-famous book, Two Years In The Aviation Hall Of Doom’. Many industry observers see the long-term results of Smith’s book as being exactly what the new Civil Aviation Corporation is about – increased efficiency, accountability and bringing the aviation customer into the decision-making loop. Smith himself is ‘cautiously optimistic’ about the new Corporation and in particular, the review of Flight Standard ANOs and ANRs that has also been announced.

The problems with Flight Standards are well-known by everybody in the industry. Too many rules and regulations that are by and large overly complex, outdated and irrelevant to today’s airways system now make life hard for both those who have to enforce them and those who try and make a living around them. The review panel will include members of the industry and will analyze all existing ANRs to simplify and modify them as required. The Department has hired a legal counsel to assist in this complex task.

In the meantime, Departmental task forces will be set up progressively to review areas of major concern. Australian Aviation believes that there has·been a considerable change within many sections of the DofA in recent times as to their dealings with industry. Where once the Department was largely guilty of simply steamrolling over most operators and ignoring their objections and suggestions to simplify and rationalise procedures, the DofA nowadays is bending over backwards to listen to what the industry has to say.

Many feel that this new era of accountability has been brought about as a result of the wealth of criticisms levelled at the Department following the release of Dick Smith’s book and the subsequent Parliamentary investigation that resulted in more than 800 people submitting specific cases of complaint. Unfortunately the Parliamentary Committee has all but faded into obscurity due to key personnel losses. What later occurred was the formation of the Australian Aviation Council (AAC), a grouping of almost every aviation-related body in a combined frontal assault upon the growing bureaucracy that was endangering their future. On the surface it would appear that the AAC has achieved little since its formation early in 1986. However, many observers feel that the united pressure that the AAC has already shown has resulted in a significant change of attitude by the Minister and his key Departmental heads.

It is also believed that from a political point of view the Minister was surprised by the general acceptance of the Coalition’s aviation policy, which itself embodies most of what has now been released via the CAC. The entire industry enthusiastically supported a thorough review of the infamous Flight Standards Division in addition to a wide-ranging efficiency audit on the Department itself. Previously the Minister had specifically denied that these were necessary so the change of attitude represents. a significant change in overall Departmental philosophy. .

The CAC itself will take a year or more to establish and will ultimately redeploy around 6000 of the DofA’s present 9800 people. The Department itself has shed some 1200 staffers over the past three years while a further 1600 are in the process of crossing over to the FAC. Both the CAC and FAC will have private industry representation on their boards and will be run strictly as profit-making corporations. With few of the traditional operational shackles of the public service, the scope for reducing costs to the end user is considerable. We note though that the cost of operating a typical light aircraft has almost doubled under the new charging procedures set to come in later this year. This will force a great number of private pilots to abandon the safety net of the present airways system and fly Nosar, no details. As a result the long-term accident rate is expected to unfortunately increase.

It is early days though and as we went to press much was still to be revealed as to the full implications of the CAC. The Department will now meet regularly with AVIAC and other representative bodies to fine-tune the process that will hopefully have the CAC up and running sometime during 1988.

If the full intent of the CAC is implemented without the traditional bureaucratic manoeuvring that is part and parcel of the public service mentality, then Australian aviation stands the best chance it has ever had of working with a more efficient, responsive and practically minded administrative body. Let’s hope we can report this, as fact two years from now.