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Your Say!

While the Association does not necessary agree or disagree with everything on this page,

we do respect the right of everyone to have their say.

Air traffic controllers ‘falling asleep on the job’ with no backup.

We were sent the following:

Air traffic controllers working solo nightshifts, responsible for large expanses of the country’s skies, are falling asleep, creating concern for public safety. Controllers told The Weekend Australian the situation was an issue in 10 air sectors for which only one controller, based either in a major radar centre or local tower, was rostered on the nightshift.

Civil Air, the controllers’ union, said those sectors covered skies over most regional areas, as well as towers at Perth and Adelaide and in Sydney during night curfew. The union confirmed controllers working the single-person nightshifts had at times reported falling asleep and that it was pushing for two-person shifts or at least greater back-up for those working solo. “There have been several reports (of controllers falling asleep) made to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, mainly because of the confidentiality the ATSB provides,” said Civil Air president and controller Tom McRobert. “They have put in a confidential report saying ‘I fell asleep’ or ‘I saw someone fall asleep’. It’s not a common occurrence but … it is definitely a concern, the more and more they push fatiguing rosters.”

ATSB confirmed it had received confidential reports about controller fatigue. Airservices said it had no reports of controllers falling asleep but “a small number” had complained about single-operator nightshifts. “Single-person nightshifts are currently in place for approximately 20 positions across Australia where traffic volume and complexity is low,” a spokeswoman said. “The practice has been reviewed at length by Airservices, with our rosters built on a sound understanding of fatigue and the science of sleep. We encourage staff to report any fatigue, related issues … This can be done de-identified.”

However, Mr McRobert, a controller based in Melbourne, said controllers were unwilling to make such reports to Airservices for fear of “repercussions”. He and most controllers believed two people should be rostered on all nightshifts because of the safety benefits. There were also practical reasons controllers who found themselves dozing on nightshifts were reluctant to report it.

“There’s a lack of willingness for an individual if they are feeling tired and dozing off to put their hand up and say ‘Get me out’,” he said. “Because that requires a closing of airspace, or reclassification of the airspace as uncontrolled and a very high-level investigation. And Airservices will start pointing fingers.”

While traffic volumes may be low, nightshift controllers are responsible for the full range of duties, including monitoring radar and communicating with pilots to ensure sufficient separation between aircraft, keeping them on the right flight paths and dealing with emergencies. Airservices said solo nightshifts mostly occurred in operations centres where other staff were working on other sectors at the same time. “They have the opportunity to take short breaks throughout the shift and there is a supervisor,” the spokeswoman said.

Solo nightshifts operate for much of Australia’s airspace. “Basically everywhere with very low traffic, so anything into Sydney from either Melbourne or Brisbane areas, because Sydney has a curfew at night (applying to many but not all aircraft),” Mr McRobert said.

What a load of crap!

Air Traffic Controller salaries in Australia can range from $141,585 - $182,792 for a 35 hour week. It’s a very well-paid job and apart from what the ATC union Civil Air says, it’s like any job, once you’re trained and know what you’re doing, it’s not all that hard.

If a few tower controllers can’t stay awake while doing a night shift – get rid of them. You don’t become a tower controller overnight, you need a few year’s experience in the ACC before you get tower duty and you don’t get a solo shift in the tower until/unless you’ve been checked out thoroughly. By the time you get there you would definitely know the routine and would plan for it.

There are thousands of Australians who work solo at night but they don’t get $140,000 plus pa. Security guards and interstate truck drivers, for instance, do it every day of the week and they don’t get $140,000 pa.

Years ago, we used to do a night shift to look after two and only two, overflying international aircraft, one going Japan to Sydney, the other Sydney to Japan. We’d sit around from 11.00pm until about 2.00am doing nothing, take position reports from the two aircraft then do nothing again until relieved in the morning. It was quiet, it was boring but you knew that before you went in. Like doggo workers everywhere, you slept during the day before you started and you went to work ready for the all-nighter. In the quiet times you read a book, or listened to the radio, or spoke via the link to the bloke doing the doggo in the next FIR.

What a beat up!!!

And speaking of aeroplanes and stuff, how would you like to be on short finals and get hit by THIS?

SASR getting a raw deal??

The following article appeared in Michael Smith News on the 14^th June and was sent to us by Trevor Rigby.

The writer wants to remain anonymous, the way the SAS likes things. He served 14 years in the ADF, 9 years as a Royal Australian Regiment infantryman and 5 years with the Special Air Service Regimen.

“The Special Air Service Regiment seeks out and destroys Australia’s most dangerous enemies. It targets the leaders of terror organisations who are shielded by suicidal, heavily armed Jihadis embedded amongst co-operative ‘civilians’. Our enemies don’t like us and they do their best to kill us with no moral restraint and complete impunity. The Mujahideen don’t have much use for a Human Rights Commission.

The SAS cannot fight enemies like that by adhering to normal Western moral standards. If we did, it would be leveraged as a weakness by the enemy. We have to keep them guessing about our limits. I wouldn’t deploy if I was working with blokes who operated like predictable Mr Nice Guys.

The ADF is currently conducting a full-blown enquiry into ‘rumours of possible breaches of the laws of armed conflict’ by Australian special forces in Afghanistan. We are alleged to have operated with ‘disregard for human life and dignity’. Fair enough. I don’t know one bloke I served with who has a high regard for the lives of terrorists. There’s nothing dignified about IEDs and their fighting methods either.

We are not sent out to deliver a personal dignity entitlement to our enemies. We go out to kill them.

Right now, the Chief of Defence Force is doing immense damage to our troops deployed in Afghanistan. Australian taxpayers are paying for ads in the Afghani press encouraging Afghanis to dob in Australian troops for war crimes – see HERE. How idiotic is that? What a propaganda gold mine; and you can be certain the enemy will be using it against us.

The Australian enquiry will receive heaps of responses from the enemy, let’s face it they are embedded among the local Afghans. And what will it achieve? How do you think Australian troops will respond to allegations against them from the enemy? This might be difficult for outsiders to hear, but even if boundaries have been overstepped, unless the entire patrol turned on each other there will be little chance of any evidence to support any claims made by the enemy or Afghan civilians.

SAS troops obey orders. We go where we’re ordered to go and act as we’re ordered to act. There’s no allegations that I know of that says SAS troops have failed to obey orders. Whatever’s been done has been the work of a highly disciplined team of professional, accountable soldiers operating within their own internal chain of command - and that goes all the way to the top. Smiling politicians are always on hand to get their photo taken and congratulate us on our results.

Well God help any ADF leadership that tries to hang a few young troopers out to dry.

So what are we stuck with?

• A bombardment of allegations that will ALL have to be investigated at taxpayer expense.

• SAS unit members taken away from their duties to “help” the investigation and for interviews with investigators.

• The usual bags of tax payers’ money given to the enemy in compensation for alleged wrongdoing by us - even if unproven.

• SAS tactics and operational security compromised by our own Government and Defence force due to a call for an open investigation and for transparency from left wing journalists to mention a few.

• Resentments amongst the SAS members and as is common practice much more secrecy, which is a certainty at the grass root levels.

The ADF’s investigation into the rumours has already been leaked to Fairfax and the ABC who've made the leaked material public. As a result of Fairfax and the ABC’s reports, the Russians have now joined in to make life more difficult for us in the field.

Recently the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement about “The crimes committed by Australian troops in Afghanistan” (See HERE). Using the ABC and Fairfax’s reports, the Russian statement said Australians have engaged in ‘systematic, unauthorized and groundless use of weapons, particularly against civilians.’ It quotes the ABC as the source for ‘shocking facts about cold-blooded murders committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan’.

Total bullshit, created by our taxpayer funded broadcaster to be used by our enemies against us. The ABC is always going on about Russia and scandals. Looks like they've made one of their own. There are plenty of problems in Australian society. There is definitely a problem in the ADF, but it’s not the war fighters. It’s our leadership and the tone they set - from the PM down.

Interesting interview:-

Back in June (2018) the Outsiders program from SKY TV Channel sat down with former Australian Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel (WngCdr in the old money) Riccardo Bosi to talk about allegations that soldiers committed war crimes while operating in Afghanistan. Fairfax Media reported a Special Air Service Regiment 'rookie' was pressured to execute an elderly unarmed detainee by high-ranking soldiers in 2009. The accusation forms part of a confidential defence inquiry in which special forces insiders described unsanctioned and illegal violence exhibited in operations.

Click HERE to watch it.

Who defends our defenders?

Trevor Rigby sent us this too.

Last week Defence admitted former Lt Colonel Karel Dubsky was an innocent victim of the Jedi Council witch-hunt that terminated his career and left him a shattered man. (See HERE and HERE). That makes it hard to miss the irony that another of our nation’s defenders was led to the scaffold last week in the shape of Australia’s most decorated contemporary soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith VC, MG.

In an extraordinarily tasteless article, Fairfax Media alleged Mr Roberts-Smith was being investigated for unspecified “breaches of the laws of armed conflict” in Afghanistan. It was claimed this was part of Major-General Paul Brereton’s wide-ranging trawl through 15 years of service by Australia’s special forces soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Fairfax’s own admission, this inquiry is supposed to be conducted behind closed doors. There are very good reasons for this, not the least of which is that many of the operations in question were and remain classified. Another is that the evidence of such crimes is notoriously unreliable, especially when it comes from possible enemies.

The greatest difficulty, though, is the nature of war itself. Combat pits men against each other in circumstances where the exigencies of battle and the need for self-preservation, often take precedence over the rules of war. This has always been so. Claims of Australian soldiers killing surrendering Germans in the First World War were so prevalent that even Bean refused to dismiss them and cited the “primitive bloodthirstiness” of battle for soldiers performing unseemly deeds.

In “Storming the Falklands”, former paratrooper Tony Banks related the distressing scenes at the Wireless Ridge, where British troops made a night attack with fixed bayonets and were told to take no prisoners. A terrified young Argentine soldier surrendered, pleading for his life and begging not to be killed. A brief argument occurred among Banks and his comrades as to who was going to kill the man before a tarpaulin was thrown over his head; he was shot and then bayoneted.

If these things happen in war between uniformed combatants, how much more difficult is it to strictly comply with the rules of war when the enemy deliberately does not? Insurgents do not wear uniforms; they stash their weapons to blend into the population and pull them out when it suits them to attack. They use non-combatants as human shields. It is easy in these circumstances for innocent civilians to die. Add to that the frustration of seeing colleagues killed, dismembered and wounded and seeing rescue helicopters shot at, or enduring renegade Afghan “allies” murdering Australian soldiers in their compounds. The moral certainty of Punt Road pundits is a luxury often unavailable to the Australian soldiers in combat zones.

None of these things was a deterrent, however, to the almost salacious way in which this most recent story was reported, including the claim that Ben Roberts-Smith “declined to answer a series of detailed questions sent to him by Fairfax Media.” Given this is a confidential investigation he should not have to. In fact, details of the investigation should never have been published until they were completed. What is most disturbing is the frequency with which investigations of allegations against soldiers make their way into the media, when details of military operations do not. Even when investigators illegally seize soldier’s psychological records – which are supposed to be confidential – this rarely makes it into the press. It suggests the source of the leaks is not soldiers themselves, but powerful and deeply entrenched interests within Defence.

All of this, leads many to suspect that political interests are triumphing over military imperatives. When two cadets at the Australian Defence Force Academy in 2013 streamed images of one of them having sex with a female cadet, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, was sensationally invited to conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the role of women in the ADF. Although Broderick herself had no military service and no expertise in military operations, she took it upon herself to make sweeping recommendations about the participation of women in frontline units. Normally, decisions about the structure and composition of military units are determined solely by the nature of the enemy and what is necessary to capture or kill them. Disturbingly, her recommendations were accepted in spite of her total absence of military qualification.

Fears and suspicions of political agendas are now running rife throughout Australia’s service personnel. They fear the insidious attacks on their dignity by those who have always found reason to confuse service of one’s country with militarism. They fear all they stand for being sullied by cheap shots from moralising television hosts. Most of all, many fear there is nothing to protect them against civil litigation by supposed Iraqi and Afghan “victims” bringing claims through Australian courts. In the United Kingdom, hundreds of soldiers have suffered years of torment before the courts and the Iraq Historic Abuse Team (IHAT) inquiry, with no end to their nightmares yet in sight.

The same could happen here. Our service men and women are all too aware that the Brereton Inquiry could be but the start of an avalanche of inquiries and investigations stretching years into the future.

Hanging Australian service personnel out to dry now happens with distressing frequency. It certainly happened in service at home to Karel Dubsky. It has also happened on numerous occasions to Australian soldiers operating in Afghanistan. Consider the soldiers who spent years facing charges regarding the death of civilians in a night attack in Afghanistan, only to have the charges eventually withdrawn. There are other similar cases, each of which has brought untold distress to decent men and women doing their best in a morally vacant world.

Allegations of war crimes by Australian servicemen and women need to be seen through the prism of a war where front lines do not exist and where it is almost impossible to judge the outcomes of their actions against the moral standards prevailing in leafy suburbs back home. At the very least, the media should abandon the sensationalism and scandal in which a small portion now revel.

Against this backdrop, it is only fair to ask, who defends our defenders?

And this!

An interesting insight into media management amongst “other” things.

During the early weeks after the USS Fitzgerald was speared by a lumbering Philippine container ship, it was noteworthy that the captain and a couple of admirals were publicly named, but not the actual officer in charge, the officer of the deck. (OOD) The other person who should have kept the Fitz out of trouble is the person in charge of the combat information centre, the Tactical Action Officer. That individual is supposed to be monitoring the combat radar, which can detect a swimmer at a distance of two miles.

Not until a year later, when the final reports are made public and the guilty parties have been court-martialed, does the truth come out. The OOD was named Sarah Coppock and the Tactical Action Officer was named Natalie and they weren’t speaking to each other!!! The Tactical Action Officer would normally be in near constant communication with the OOD, but there is no record of any communication between them that entire shift!

Another fun fact: In the Navy that won WWII, the damage control officers were usually some of the biggest and strongest men aboard, able to close hatches, shore up damaged areas with timbers, etc. The Fitz’s damage control officer was also a woman and she never left the bridge. She handled the aftermath of the accident remotely, without lifting a finger herself! Look it up: The OOD was Sarah Coppock, Tactical Action Officer was Natalie Combs. Turns out all the key people (except one officer in the CIC) were female!

Sarah Coppock	Natalie Combs

Lt. Coppock pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty. Lt. Combs faced a recent hearing and it was decided she face a Court Marshal. In an 11-hour hearing, prosecutors painted a picture of Lt. Irian Woodley, the ship’s surface warfare coordinator and Lt. Natalie Combs, the tactical action officer, as failing at their jobs, not using the tools at their disposal properly and not communicating adequately. They became complacent with faulty equipment and did not seek to get it fixed and they failed to communicate with the bridge, the prosecution argued. Had they done those things, the government contended, they would have been able to avert the collision. The charges against Lt Woodley were dismissed.

That two of the officers, Coppock and Combs, involved in this fatal incident were female suggests that discipline and training standards have been lowered for the sake of “gender integration,” which was a major policy push at the Pentagon during the Obama administration. It could be that senior officers, knowing their promotions may hinge on enthusiastic support for “gender integration,” are reluctant to enforce standards for the women under their command.

This was the story of Kara Hultgreen, the Navy pilot who died in a 1994 F-14 crash. Investigation showed that Hultgreen had been allowed to proceed in her training after errors that would have meant a washout for any male pilot. But the Clinton administration was pushing for female fighter pilots, which resulted in a competition between the Navy and Air Force to put women into these combat roles. It is not necessary to believe that:

1. women shouldn’t be fighter pilots, in order to believe

2. lowering standards for the sake of quotas is a bad idea.

Of course, you may believe both (1) and (2), but it is (2) that gets people killed.

It seems obvious that the Pentagon (and the liberal media) sought to suppress full knowledge of what happened to the Fitzgerald in the immediate aftermath of the June 2017 incident that killed seven sailors, in the same way the details of Kara Hultgreen’s death were suppressed. It took investigative reporters like Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times a lot of hard work to find out what actually happened to Hultgreen. Let’s hope other reporters will dig into what’s happening in our military with the “gender integration” agenda at the Pentagon now.

When are the bleeding hearts going to accept that “Men and Women are different!”     tb.

And THIS.

Climate change.

It has reared its head again, there are the believers and there are the non-believers.  The believers are the good guys – the non-believes are the bad guys.

Yet, from the pile of correspondence we receive here it seems the debate is still well and truly raging and rightly or wrongly, the numbers denying seem to be on the rise.

See HERE,   and in the blue corner:  

Make up your own mind!!!

A Potential but Heretical Solution to a Sacred Political Problem?

Bob Bergman sent us this:

It appears that the Media and the political left in society have now globally adopted the mantra of “Climate Change” as their primary belief mechanism and political battle-cry. This phrase is the less abrasive way to say “Global Warming” or, as some would classify it, “Blessed Global Warming”. I have been somewhat puzzled by this all-inclusive ‘Climate Change’ phrase as I was under the impression that the ‘Climate’ of this planet has been changing ever since its inception. So, what can this phrase possibly mean? I am even more puzzled as to how such a non-statement can be the reason (excuse?) for the massive diversion of taxpayer’s funds into technically dubious projects. Maybe this is the new ‘Secret Women’s Business’?

Also, despite the large body of scientific work that shows atmospheric Carbon Dioxide level changes to be some 50 plus years behind global warming/cooling trends ‘The Mantra’ has radically demonised this humble, naturally occurring gas. So, what can be done to reduce this plague on society and so possibly reduce the incredibly wasteful funding splurge? Maybe identify one of the serious CO2 emitters? With that in mind I researched the output of CO2 by individual humans at rest and found the figure to be 0.9 Kg per day. This is an average ‘at rest’ figure and can be regarded as a minimum.

That amount doesn’t sound like much until you remember that recently we, on planet earth, passed the 6 Billion population mark. This means that the daily output from humans is at least 5.4 Billion Kg or 5.4 Million Tonnes. Multiply that by 365 and the annual output by humans is at least 1971 Million Tonnes or, as some would have it, almost 2 Billion Tonnes. I guess we could save the planet by stopping everybody breathing. This would also save heaps of money and solve all political problems.

A totally win-win solution.

And here.

Brendan Godwin

When I got out of the RAAF I went to the Antarctic base of Mawson. I wrote an article on RAAF Base Mawson that you published. At Mawson I worked for the Bureau of Meteorology. BOM trained me as a weather observer and I was also trained in general meteorology. I have a keen interest in this subject. I’ve spent the past 2 years researching climate science and have written a number of papers on the subject. I’ve attached one. You are welcome, if you are interested and game, to publish that. The real science.

We’re game - you can see it HERE. - tb

If you’re ever looking for something on this see www.carbon-sense.com. Viv Forbes is an Australian scientist and the world’s greatest pragmatist. He’s published all his papers here and all in common garden variety language with an element of your type of humour.

Relax.

Someone sent us THIS and suggested we grab a nice cold stubby, turn the lights down low, the volume up high and sit back and enjoy! 

DFRDB.

This is another topic that gets people’s hackles up. As we’re not involved in the DFRDB balls-up, we haven’t followed it all that closely, but an awful lot have. For all those on Facebook – HERE’S a group dedicated to DFRDB:

You may wish to join in their discussions

Radtechitis.

Ted Macs ays:  “My life has become a misery also due to my Radtechitis aura. I have had to lock the doors and windows to my apartment, close the curtains, turn off the lights and disconnect the phone. As I cannot leave my apartment, I am doing all my shopping, etc via the interweb. I need urgent help – perhaps I may have to deny my RadTech background and become an ex-Used Car salesman.”

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