Explanatory Statement
Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998
Exemption — recency requirement
Legislation
Subsection 98 (1) of the Civil Aviation Act 1988 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations for the Act and in the interests of the safety of air navigation.
Subregulation 11.160 (1) of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998 (CASR 1998) provides that, for subsection 98 (5A) of the Act, CASA may grant an exemption from a provision of the regulations, including Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 (CAR 1988), or a provision of the Civil Aviation Orders (the CAOs), in relation to a matter mentioned in that subsection. Under subregulation 11.160 (2), an exemption may be granted to a person, or to a class of persons, and may specify the class by reference to membership of a specified body or any other characteristic.
Under subregulation 11.205 (1) of CASR 1998, CASA may impose conditions on an exemption if this is necessary in the interests of the safety of air navigation. Under regulation 11.225 of CASR 1998, an exemption must be published on the Internet. Under subregulation 11.230 (1), an exemption ceases on the day specified within it (but no longer than 3 years after its commencement) or, if no day is specified, 3 years after commencement.
Regulation 65.025 of the CASR 1998 provides that the holder of an ATC licence or a flight service licence satisfies the recency requirement in relation to an endorsement at a particular time, if he or she has performed the duties required by the relevant function at the aerodrome, or in relation to the airspace to which the endorsement relates, for at least 5 hours within the previous 21 days.
AA reviewed the recency requirement of regulation 65.025 of CASR 1998 and noted that AA staff in Sydney are unable to use the Precision Runway Monitoring simulator (PRMS) to meet the recency requirement of subregulation 65.025 (1) of CASR 1998 although operational and weather conditions often do not require operation of the Precision Runway Monitoring system for periods in excess of 21 days. The use of the PRMS was identified as risk mitigation in the 2002 PRM Safety Case in the case of controller recency training and emergency operations. The numbers of emergency breakouts that occur per year are estimated by AA to be less than an average of 2 per year, so the PRMS is integral to ATC training for this situation, using both runway directions.
The instrument exempts ATC licence or flight service licence holders from the recency requirement in subregulation 65.025 (1) of CASR 1998. The exemption will recognise periods spent on the PRMS as satisfying the recency requirement of regulation 65.025. To ensure the safety of air navigation, conditions have been imposed. The holder of an ATC licence or flight service licence must perform at least 5 hours of duties within the previous 21 days. AA must advise CASA in writing of any proposed changes to the PRMS. CASA must approve any changes to the PRMS.
Legislative Instruments Act
For paragraph 98 (5A) (a) of the Act, CASA may, by instrument, grant an exemption from compliance with a provision of the regulations or CAOs. Under subsection 98(5AA) of the Act, an instrument issued for paragraph 98 (5A) (a) is a legislative instrument if the instrument is expressed to apply to a class of persons or aircraft. The exemption applies to a class of persons. The exemption is, therefore, a legislative instrument subject to tabling and disallowance in the Parliament under sections 38 and 42 of the Legislative Instrument Act 2003 (the LIA).
Consultation
Consultation under section 17 of the LIA has not been undertaken in this case. This is a renewal of a previous instrument, CASA EX64/10, which itself renewed instrument CASA EX51/08.
Human rights implications
The instrument sets out an exemption from legislative requirements as described above. The instrument does not engage any of the applicable rights or freedoms.
The instrument commences on 1 August 2012 and stops having effect at the end of July 2015.
The exemption has been made by a delegate of CASA, under regulation 11.260 of CASR 1998.
[Instrument number CASA EX118/12]