Phil Twyford was stripped of housing portfolio in the cabinet reshurffle. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Phil Twyford was stripped of housing portfolio in the cabinet reshurffle. Photo / Mark Mitchell
COMMENT
With Phil Twyford relieved of the KiwiBuild millstone he must find time to pay more attention to an area of his retained transport portfolio that desperately needs it.
As part of that brief, he has ministerial responsibility for the Civil Aviation Authority, an agency under pressure after revelations ofdeep staffing problems, its own admission that relatively recently it didn't know what its safety role was at the place where one senior industry participant told the Herald said that no self-respecting member of aviation community would like to work.
This week the authority was spending a lot of energy pushing back against claims by a whistle blower describing to Newshub a toxic culture and a trainee pilot telling of her anger at the lack of CAA action against a flight instructor who groped her.
Since January last year 61 of around 280 staff had left the authority. Three of these were through disciplinary processes.
Director Graeme Harris insists the authority's on the mend, the workplace is healthy. Twyford has said the CAA of today is very different to the one that had shortcomings in its regulatory oversight before the 2015 Fox and Franz Heli Services cash which killed seven people. That was under the previous Government's watch.
But Twyford has had a bumpy ride in aviation, embarrassingly temporarily sidelined from his CAA role last year for using a cellphone on a plane when he shouldn't have.
This month, pilots were left wondering when he told their association conference the Government would not be supporting a bill - introduced by a National MP - to double penalties for the malicious use of high-powered lasers.
Instead the Government will ''monitor the issue'' and concentrate on enforcement.
In the face of industry concerns, Twyford has said last week he saw no need for an inquiry into the CAA.
To be fair, Twyford was commenting before this week's revelations.
But that's changed and there's growing industry pressure for an inquiry. The Auditor General has been there before but whatever is done it needs to be swift and public. Hired consultants producing in-house reviews won't cut it and hopefully a refreshed board will see that.
The CAA, like most international regulators, places a lot of weight on decrees from the United States' Federal Aviation Administration, a body under fire for being perceived as being too close to Boeing over licensing of 737 Max aircraft. And the CAA was among the last to ban that plane while it waited for the FAA to make what was its own late call.
It's time to rebuild trust in regulators.
The scene of a plane crash in Waihi in March 2018. PHOTO/MELANIE CAMOIN
Aviation New Zealand says the industry is suffering because the authority's performance is inconsistent and unpredictable. It says uneven oversight of small operators of helicopters and agricultural aircraft in particular means they get a raw deal.
Its boss John Nicholson says the need for consistency in methodology in CAA has been identified and its talked to the authority about that for many years.
''Nothing changes. Why? This has to be a mixture of poor leadership, poor clarity or understanding of purpose/process, and poor resourcing.''
He's joining the NZ Air Line Pilots' Association (NZALPA) in offering support and resources to help an inquiry.
Incoming association president Andrew Ridling says claims the authority is failing as a regulator and putting aviators and the travelling public at risk need investigating along with accusations of bullying, harassment and an unhealthy work culture.
These accusations must be taken very seriously, especially in light of the high inspector turnover at the CAA, says Ridling, a Dreamliner captain.
"We need those accusations thoroughly investigated.''
He says NZALPA aviation experts are offering support and expertise to CAA to identify aviation safety issues and address them.
"Every time one of our members takes off in an aircraft we are relying on the CAA to have addressed all the possible safety issues that might affect us so that we get to go home to our families after that flight. The travelling public might not think too much about the role of the CAA, but at the end of the day they have the very same expectations regarding their safety," says Ridling.
Instead of having to worry about hammers and nails, the CAA is one area Twyford is well advised to spend more time thinking about now.
