AFAP/AusALPA Advocacy and Submissions
Senate Inquiry - Aircraft Noise
The Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee is inquiring into the Impact and mitigation of aircraft noise. The AFAP through AusALPA has previously advocated against many related initiatives that prioritise noise appeasement over aviation standards and safety. Examples include the proposal for increased tailwind limits for take off and landing at Brisbane and proposals for increased crosswind limits at Sydney airport.
The AFAP has advocated directly to the inquiry in the following ways:
The final report from this inquiry is scheduled for publication mid-October.
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Departmental Policy Consultations and Advocacy
In May and June AusALPA provided submissions to the Department of Infrastructure and Transport to their consultations on:
- The State Safety Programme (SSP) and the National Aviation Safety Plan (NASP) 2024-27, where we advocated a need for establishment of a policy to guide greater emphasis and inclusion of standardisation when reforming regulations and industry practices.
Standardisation enables interoperability between the ICAO Contracting States and their respective service providers, personnel, technical systems and airports. It creates common operational expectations amongst those professionals working in the safety system, through reductions in workload, confusion and decision-making time. Standardisation allows technological systems to talk and interact with each other effectively (interoperability).
Yet, too often Australia has a deficient State safety culture where we readily default to opting for differences and work-arounds instead of prioritising standardisation. This key safety principle has underscored the aviation safety system since we moved past the barnstorming years but is being disregarded because of a lack of targeted inclusion of it into systems and policy considerations.
- The National Air Navigation Plan (NANP) 2024-27, which has content closely interrelated to the content in the draft SSP/NASP.
In our submission to this consultation, our main emphasis and input centred on the issue where some of the Strategic Priorities in the draft NANP need to be revisited and amended in order to achieve the goals of the plan. Some of the priorities were not achievable without first achieving other priorities and enlivening some key working groups. We also raised issues with the appropriate level of the present and future resources allocated to achieve the intended outcomes.
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Industry Skills Australia (ISA) Strategic Workforce Planning Committee - Aviation
S&T are considering submissions and participation in ISA working groups. Most recent is representation onto the Technical Committee (TC) for the Aviation Flight Instructor Project
AFAP's Naomi Radke has been appointed to this working group. AFAP President Capt. Louise Pole has a seat on the planning committee.