New Governance for CASA and ATSB
The Australian government has named a five-member expert Board of Directors to be tasked with the oversight of reform in the newly-restructured Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).
Also named are the new Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) – the nation’s aviation safety investigation agency and his Deputy.
Industry identities are optimistic about the outcome of the appointments because of the nominees’ intellectual calibre and blend of diverse senior public service and industry backgrounds.
Transport Minister Anthony Albanese’s nominations follow a parliamentary committee’s review late last year of CASA’s corporate governance, the regulator’s interaction with the ATSB, and a damning International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) report on the safety performances of Australian aviation agencies.
See Previous Article “The Scoreboard We Weren’t Supposed to See”
The appointments flow from legislation that passed through the Parliament in May that called for a new expert board for CASA, and establishing the ATSB as a separate statutory agency with a full time Chief Commissioner and two part time Commissioners.
CASA
Chairing the CASA Board will be Dr Allan Hawke, former Secretary to various transport-responsible ministers in the nineties, and later successively serving as Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand; Secretary of Defence; Departmental Secretary at the Department of Transport and Regional Services; and later Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs.
Named as Deputy CASA Chair, aerospace identity David Gray has extensive industry experience with successive managing directorships with Boeing Australia and GEC Marconi Australia, and more recently as Divisional Chief Executive, GEC (Australia) Heavy Engineering.
Two high-level lawyers are also named to join the Board are:
- Helen Gillies, presently General Manager of Risk & Compliance and Corporate Counsel at Sinclair Knight Merz; and
- Trevor Danos, currently a Partner at lawyers Corrs Chambers Westgarth.
And current CASA CEO and Director of Aviation Safety, John McCormick, who will be an ex officio member of the Board.
ATSB
The policy review has also named Mr Martin Dolan as the new ATSB Chief Commissioner.. Mr Dolan will be joined by Mr Noel Hart in the position of part-time Commissioner, with the second part-time position to be filled in the near future.
Mr Dolan has held successive First Assistant Secretary appointments in DOTARS’ Aviation & Airports Regulation Division, Airports Division and Aviation & Airports Policy, and senior executive positions at the Australian Energy Market Commission and Comcare.
Mr Hart is currently General Manager, North West Shelf Shipping Company, and has a strong background of executive appointments with BP Shipping (Australia and United States), BP Australia, Caltex Tanker Company, Sydney and Australian National Line, Melbourne. His currently board memberships are the Australian Shipowners Association Executive Committee (Chairman), International Chamber of Shipping Executive Committee, and Asian Shipowners Forum.
All appointments will be effective from 1 July 2009.
