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Ben Sandilands writes:
The CASA special audit of Qantas has been completed and will be suppressed on the grounds of being "commercial in confidence".
Draft copies of the audit, which was called in the ‘public interest’ by the aviation safety regulator on Sunday 3 August are believed to be on their way to Qantas and the Minister for infrastructure, Anthony Albanese.
It is understood Qantas will now assist CASA in refining the content and style of a mutually agreed final version of the audit, which will never see the light of day in its full form unless immense political pressure is placed on the government to release it in its entirety.
CASA spokesman Peter Gibson says:
The report itself won't be released as it is an audit report and contains commercial in confidence material from the airline. Just like any other audit report.
But this is not like any other audit in the history of civil aviation in Australia.
It is about a frightening string of grave incidents affecting Qantas flights, and the failure of both the airline and regulator to carry out their legally enforceable obligations to ensure the completion of airworthiness directives.
It concerns a break down in operational standards at Qantas that has been abundantly obvious since the latter half of last year, and is supposed to identify the reasons for massive deferrals of maintenance which critics say constitutes a dangerous abuse of the use of time limited permissible defects on aircraft to keep them in revenue service when they ought to have been under repair.
If CASA cannot detect and enforce the safety regulations that apply to Australian airlines, whether nasty little killer outfits like Transair or supposedly untouchable big brands like Qantas, it is itself a danger to the safety of travellers and a very big risk to politicians who seek to shield it from exposure.
CASA claims that it will in due course issue a press release or perhaps even hold a press conference in which selected or key findings of the audit are released or discussed.
Maybe it can arrange with Qantas to have in attendance a full children’s chorus singing the Qantas national anthem ‘I still call Australia home’ to put the bravely inquiring media into the right frame of mind. |
