Lifting the yoke

Choose one of the following and try this paper exercise: Imagine you want to become an engineer, a pilot, start a flying school, enter the charter or RPT market as an operator, organise a start-up freight operation or even a business painting certified aircraft. Investigate the steps that you must take to reach one of these goals. You might be unpleasantly surprised at the scope and complexity of the regulations that will confront you. Or you might be put off entirely and choose something else to do. Unfortunately you would not be alone. There needs to be a serious and independent investigation of the effects of the regulatory burden on all levels of the aviation industry. It is understood that aviation must have a very strong safety culture. There is no argument on this point. However, regulation complexity and compliance costs have reached such a point for many regional operators and businesses that commercial expansion is often viewed as a negative, fraught with down-side risks.

And yet the aviation industry contains some of the best entrepreneurs our country has produced. The fact that the industry is here at all is testament to their leadership and business acumen. They have generated the profits and paid the taxes that enable the large aviation bureaucracies to exist at all. At the regional and GA levels the industry has survived but not thrived since the 1970s. Ironically aviation technology has improved exponentially since that time making air travel, commercial and private, safer than ever. Australia is richer than it has ever been yet the roots and smaller branches of aviation seem to be withering.

Let’s have the inquiry and look dispassionately at the effect government regulation has had on our industry. The anecdotal evidence is everywhere but we need organised, detailed, hard data if we are ever to lift the government yoke from the industry’s back. This is not a call for a witch-hunt but an attempt to shift our gaze and get our collective house

And yet the aviation industry contains some of the best entrepreneurs our country has produced

in order. New Zealand has done it and is already reaping the bilateral and export benefits.

If the government will not assist with the inquiry the industry must do it itself. The cost would not be prohibitive if it was shared. Holding a mirror up to the government weight on our industry might be one of the best investments yet, albeit if that weight was finally removed or reduced drastically. It would not be surprising if aviation was revealed to be one of the most over-regulated and over-burdened industries in this country. Only when we have the facts in front of us can we force our elected representatives to listen and see that significant parts of our industry are under draconian regulatory pressure and escalating compliance costs.

A new year can bring new opportunities. We must examine and confront what appears to be one of the largest drags on an industry that should be healthy and developing at all levels. The aviation industry has been reacting to endless government inquiries for years. Let’s be pro-active and shine our own light on the government aviation bodies that are ostensibly there to serve us. It’s time that the regulated took a stand.