Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a participating member of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport, I support the committee report and recommendations on the administration of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. However, in so doing, I draw attention in particular to that part of the report that comments upon CASA’s relationship with industry and the evidence given by witnesses, in a somewhat conflicting way, that CASA’s focus on becoming a partner with industry was prejudicing what many in the community saw should be its stronger regulatory and enforcement role. To the extent that the report recommends that CASA at the very least reconsider its partnership with industry, I urge the Senate to consider that recommendation in the light of the fact that the evidence about the undesirability of CASA’s close partnership with industry was, in my view, largely about the commercial airline sector.

In respect of the private operators, it is my view that sufficient evidence was given to the committee that CASA’s relationship with the owner-operator sector of the aviation industry is appropriate—with a view to a greater self-regulatory outcome for that sector of the industry, as opposed to a prescriptive outcome—despite significant evidence that, in respect of the commercially operated sector, that modus operandi for CASA is no longer appropriate or needs reconsidering. So I would urge the Senate to look at those sectors of the aviation industry in a different light when it considers CASA’s role going into the future.

Question agreed to.