Mandatory reporting moves may compromise safety

The investigation is no-blame in conduct and outcome, encouraging cooperation and reporting on safety”.

Well said – and that spirit should inform the powers that be to handle any changes to the TSI Act or regs very carefully indeed.

The reason aviation safety has been able to advance so far so quickly is because of the ‘just’ culture established early on in aviation, based on providing protections to pilots and others so they would report issues honestly and without the fear of being made a scapegoat for an accident or incident.

As AAAA said in its submission to the ATSB on the proposed changes, a just culture is a fragile construct that requires significant maturity on the part of regulator and regulated.

Generally, this has been the practice in Australia over decades where the aviation regulator, CASA, has had a limited ability to actively pursue punishment of aviation personnel based on its honest, open reporting to ATSB for the improvement of aviation safety.

Similar and even greater protections are afforded aviation personnel in other jurisdictions, including the US, to encourage reporting.

The underlying issue of concern is what seems to be a CASA-driven attack on the concepts of a just culture and no-blame reporting.

CASA would prefer to have direct access to safety reporting for the purposes of applying its enforcement policy – regardless, apparently, of the potential impact on reporting or the openness that has characterised much of aviation’s safety wins.

CASA appears to take the low road and attempts in these amendments to force the ATSB to pass on information that might implicate wrongdoers rather than developing better systems to make use of the existing information from ATSB investigations.

It seems the concept of protection from self-incrimination is one that CASA is happy to ignore.

Our fear is that the proposed greater access to the details of ATSB reports would lead to less reporting because industry participants would be fearful of perceived unfair or unjust actions by CASA.

This would be a retrograde step for aviation safety and reflects the lack of safety maturity within CASA, which has many other means available to it — including regulated entry control and audit — to police industry’s compliance.

More staff taken on at CASA over recent years by way of a tax hike on industry should have given it a greater capacity for intelligence-gathering and promoting aviation safety.

If CASA was a mature and responsive organisation characterised by efficient discharge of its responsibilities, consistency in its interpretation of regulations, and innovation in management and delivery, there would be a cause for greater trust in CASA’s motives.

For these reasons, AAAA is strongly opposed to the changes.

Instead, we would welcome a continuation of the positive and cooperative approach from the ATSB, based on a just culture, greater education, and improved – not degraded – protections so that aviators, maintainers and aircraft owners can report aviation safety accidents and incidents without fear of unreasonable retribution.

While some elements of the proposals, such as clarifications of what are reportable incidents of the various types, are generally worthwhile, these could be achieved by improved education rather than more regulation.

The trend in Commonwealth aviation regulation seems to be that if the regulator’s job is not easy, you simply try to convince government that you need more people – funded by more taxing of industry – or more regulation, even if it white-ants the very principles of aviation safety.

Rather than a bit of healthy introspection to establish how it might do things better within the existing regulations, government is reaching for the increased regulation lever again.

No-one in government appears willing to stand up and say “Do things smarter within existing resources” , “Come up with better approaches without increased powers” or – heaven forbid – “work with industry for mutual wins”.

If ever there was a clear case for why the roles and responsibilities of CASA and the ATSB must be kept separate, this is it.

Perhaps it hints at why CASA also should have the regulatory ‘reform’ process taken away and given back to a department that seems to be much more competent at consultation and policy development – a good example being the recent positive work achieved through COAG on the National Airport Safeguarding Guidelines – within months rather than decades.

Transparency is a lot like trust: it should be a two-way street. When one party to that relationship continually seeks to undermine the other, it should come as no surprise that aviation safety will be the loser.