turboplanner

Yes a tractor can help, but then you really need a second person or else you are up and down from the tractor all the time.Anyway, the issue here is that the liability system has gone so far amok that it is creating unemployment and poverty.

One local farmer had a breakdown ( polite speak for went insane) after getting a threatening letter from a lawyer because an employee injured himself. Apparently the employee was disobeying instructions at the time, but that story would surely change after a bit of coaching.

 

Anyway, what do you have in mind for all those young people on newstart turbs? More aimless days? While the old folk do all the work?

If you're talking about boughs from gum trees, I cleared 60 hectares with a stick rake on a tractor in about six weeks, and the paddock was up to mowing standard, by dozing the boughs and fallen trees into windrows then dozing the windrows into heaps, then burning the heaps by dozing the dry boughs and sticks into the centre until it was all burnt. (That was after the trees had been knocked over, so it was a permanent fix.

If the trees are along the boundary, you have the option of fencing the trees and putting the sheep in there, rather than pick u; they'll clean around every stick. What they're eating in that pane, they're not eating in the area you're growing for bales.

 

Newstart is for helping people to make a new start, a new career, and I don't think you could con the government into paying for stick picking as a career training option.

 

However, your could try wwoofers WWOOF - Home You don't pay them anything, just cover their board and food; but if you want them to use machinery etc. you still have to ensure they are qualified or trained to meet your duty of care obligations.

 

If you are on lambplan and are weighing the lambs, checking eye muscle dimensions, and supplying a premium lamb to the abattoirs and its the stick picking that's sending you into a loss, then I understand you have a problem, but if you're not to that level, there are options which produce enough profit to have someone clean up the boughs.

 

You have a big advantage over many others in having an abattoir less than an hour away.

 

As far as not being able to get free stick pickers being the cause of some Australia-wide trend to out of control food prices, it's worth looking at who your competitors are:

 

Feed Conversion Ratios are approximately:

 

Sheep (poor quality forage) Over 6

 

Beef Cattle: 6

 

Sheep (Good quality high concentrate): 4 - 5

 

Poultry: 1.8

 

Barramundi ).68

 

The ratios are kilogrammes of feed in per kilogramme at market.

 

So it's possible you are feeding 150% more in hay than you would in grain, and you could then leave the boughs for native animals.

 

In the Cities the food of choice is chicken, and I know two brothers in the Riverina who were killiong 350,000 chickens per week, and one year had a feed bill of $8 million.

 

Lamb's market share is very small, and that's what's hurting your industry, not the odd case of public liability, or having to pay employees a decent wage.

 

Throughout Australia you will always find farmers in any district making good money, and others scraping to make ends meet; the many variables are what does it.

 

I feel sorry for the old guy if he was down to a one on one disagreement over who said what, but on the other hand I also know a farmer who started out in prime lambs in the mid north about ten years ago, bought a second property in the malleee, bought a third property near Ceduna and a fourth in the same general area, all financed by his lamb sales, and he employs people and talks compliance.

 

 

 

Introduction of the #FAA far's immediately, is the only way forward.

That might not be as simple as it sounds.

 

Both Australia and the United States have been progressively embedding within ICAO.

 

Set out below is what I found after a few hours of research in 2013; I know it's not directly related to the Mark Skidmore comments; I was only searching for a Safety Management System at the time; if you do your homework, you should be able to see whether there is any chance at all of Australia extricating itself from ICAO, and going with the FARs you are talking about.

 

As for the FARs, it might pay to do some homework there also. When I was researching the SMS chain of responsibility, I found that the US had also adopted the very same ICAO process which applies in Australia; times have changed and much of the grass is the same colour on both sides of the fence.

 

2013

 

Department of Infrastructure & Transport

 

DIT posted this statement in 201. There is a link from this link

 

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) now requires member nations to produce a State Safety Program.

 

http://www.casa.gov.au/scripts/nc.dll?WCMS:STANDARD::pc=PC_100396

 

Department of Infrastructure & Transport

 

This link provides some detail, and another link to the CASA site regarding SMS for various operations such as airlines, charter operators, maintenance operations, aerodromes etc.

 

State Safety Risk Management

 

http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/safety/ssp/chapter_2.aspx

 

“The Deed of Agreement between CASA and Recreational Aviation Australia, Inc. requires a Safety management System to be in place”

 

This is confirmed by the following CASA document:

 

http://flysafe.raa.asn.au/regulations/casa_sport_aviation_handbook.pdf

 

The document spells out board member obligations:

 

An SMS Manager is required by CASA to meet its obligations to ICAO

 

This CASA link calls up ICAO document 9859 What is safety management and safety management systems? | Civil Aviation Safety Authority

 

This link to ICAO 9859, calls up a Manager - http://www2.icao.int/en/ism/Guidance Materials/SMM_3rd_Ed_Advance_R4_19Oct12_clean.pdf

 

On Page 168, Table A SMS Element says:

 

Establish a key person/officer responsible for the administration and maintenance of the SMS.

 

On Page 175, Appendix 1 there is a sample Job Description for a Safety Manager

 

 

Mainly meat sheep, between Horsham and Naracoorte. On the paddocks used for hay, I work to clear the fallen branches away, dreaming of how just one of the 300 nearby young recipients of newstart benefits would be a great help.Alas the minimum wage is way more that their efforts could yield, and also the legal risk of employing them is unacceptable. So me, at 70, has to do it all while paying tax to support these young people while they sleep in all day. Wonderful system huh?

We had Merinos at Naracoorte.

How about a stick rake on the front of the tractor?

 

 

It was with dismay last night when doing a plan to fly to Archerfield (had to be there by 0800) that I noticed a new item on the NOTAMS which directed me to note 6 in the remarks section of the ERSA.In the most up to date version (OzRunways) note 6 states that all non VH registered (RA registered) require permission to land at Archerfield, new to me as I had only been there in my Jab 2 weeks earlier.

Following calls to the briefing office (knew nothing about it even stating he had not seen anything like it in the 7 years he had worked at the briefing office), the ARO (no answer), I imagined it was probably something to do with landing fees. As Avdata have my details I went ahead and planned the flight and submitted a flight plan with no problems.

 

Early this morning I rang the ARO again to ascertain the requirements of the PPR requirement, he knew nothing about it but suspected it was about landing fees.

 

I have since found out that it is about landing fees and as RAA will not give out contact details for members so that Avdata are able to send a bill to the appropriate person this is the way airport operators are going to go about it. Give us your details or you don't have permission to land

 

If one place is doing this it will not be long before all airports require PPR for recreational aviation aircraft.

 

I have no issue with this as Avdata have had my details for several years and I pay landing and parking fees.

 

Interesting times ahead. Time for RAA to play the game or risk members not having access to airports.

 

Aldo

Maybe not Aldo; this blew up four or five years ago at other locations and everyone expected a backlash, but nothing major has happened. If you pay, no reason for them to get upset.

 

 

What sort of farming are you doing?

 

 

I learnt my lessons through losing cases; you're welcomne to start down that track if you wish.

 

 

Well, we live in Australia, so picking the system used in NZ, or even better, Liberia, is pointless, because people who don't understand their responsibilities under the law are going to get clobbered by it.

 

This case gives us the opportunity to top up insurance, and learn a little more about duty of care.

 

 

What is needed is for the government to do the occupational health and safety stuff at no cost or risk to the employer.

We had that, and you South Australians brought it to an end with the deaths of two children at a South Australian kindergarten.

 

The OH&S training could be done while on newstart.

No reason why not, a person coming to a farm should be qualified to use farm equipment, identify farm hazards.

 

Then the most you would need to do against an employer would be to protect a worker who correctly refused to do anything unsafe.

What you are talking about there is probably culpable negligence, where the farmer would be charged with manslaughter because he knew that what he was doing was wrong.

Go and have a read of the various comments on Donoghue v Stevenson, and you'll find that lawsuits for negligence is usually for something you forgot to do, like put a cover over, or barrier around a trench, provide a sefty harness for the hayshed,put the guard back on the post driver etc.

 

And it doesn't have to be an employee; it can be a neighbour who has come over to help you with hay carting.

 

Workplace injured would be taken care of by welfare, and the employer would be safe from losing his farm

The "I stuff up and you all pay method" has worn thin with too many people. Last time I checked, farms were the most dangerous workplaces; that's what has to change.

 

But we insist on following this insane path which enriches a few lawyers but makes unemployment worse and limits production. We should all blame our local members for this sorry state.

If you breach your duty of care and that results in someone becoming a quadriplegic, you pay, so one solution, which I advocate, is to remove the risk.

For example, at hay baling time in the south east, we used to have a truck and trailer in the paddock, with two people on top of the hay and two pitching the bales up.

 

We loaded the truck and trailer up to about the 3.5 metre height, had to use a ladder to get down.

 

Back at the hay shed it all happened in reverse until the hay stack got higher than the truck and trailer, and then we used a bale loader up to about the 4.5 metre level.

 

At feed out time someone would climb up the side of the stack to start, and throw the bales down to someone on the truck.

 

We never had a load come apart, and no one ever fell, but plenty did; one of the locals was castrated by a star picket, and some died.

 

Today, with the Falls fron Heights legislation set at 2 metres without railing or a harness, you couldn't take the risk doing that.

 

Most people have just walked away from small bales; but found they actually get better productivity in hay handling with the bigger round or square bales, and have elminiated the risks at the same time.

 

It's a matter of not putting someone at risk of an accident.

 

 

This the whole problem, there are people like yourself who for some reason see this out as justifiable

MOST people have now moved on, practice risk management, and cover themselves with PL insurance.

 

You seem to think that I don't understand how the system works....I understand how it works, what I'm trying to tell you is that I think the way it works is utterly disgusting.

I know you know how the system works, I referred to that earlier.

 

As for your comment about parallels to RA, how? We are not paid employees, we choose to fly for fun, we are not allowed to be used for hire or reward, unless you are a paid instructor, however, part of being a pilot is being competent at inspecting your aircraft for serviceability, so if, as an instructor, you can't competently do that, what use are you?

If you stopped the ranting and did some reading, you'd realise that duty of care is not confined to employers.

I gave you a flying example above; if you, as in an RA pilot, take a passenger up and decide to do some sighteeing below 500 feet, you have breached your duty of care.

 

 

Quad bikes had 22 fatalities in 2015 roughly double RAA but with far more participants, so it's worth keeping an eye on what is happening to them.

 

The recent decision which virtually forces every owner to fit a roll cage and seat belts if they want to keep their farm is one example to watch

 

This one is another.

 

No 1 or 2 on the Worksafe death tally is farms, and the link I posted from the lawyers tells us that 2/3 of those deaths are from quad bikes.

 

Some groups just produce more statistics than they should, so it's natural they'll receive attention, and create patterns.

 

 

Point= MissedBig difference between walking along minding your own business, and choosing to use a machine that you knew was unserviceable, without any safety equipment.

If you cant see a difference.... that might explain a few things.

I explained the difference in #156

 

"If she had been a champion trail bike rider, or even had been an experienced farm hand with an ATO for quad bikes, the case may have gone a different way."

 

If the girl had had enough experience to know the quad bike was unserviceable, and that a helmet was required, the same as a two wheel motor bike, then she may not have had a case.

 

 

That's probably a good example. Great big potholes in highways are another. You are entitled to expect a standard

I agree; the Shire of Wentworth case was a good example - they had failed to put up a "curve" sign.

"but on the fringe, like swimming in crocodile and shark infested waters, a warning sign should be enough. Isn't that why we are REQUIRED to have placards prominently displayed on the dashboard of RAAus Aircraft?

 

The warning sign is to advise the unwary that there is an increased level of risk. You can still be sued if you are negligent though.

 

I previously gave two examples, one where we lost a case after a spectator's daughter was injured and the spectator claimed the club had advertised the meeting as a family event. We then put "Motor Racing is Dangerous on all advertising, programmes etc and were sued a couple of years later after a sprint car broke through a catch fence. We argued we had given a warning, but lost because the cable had let go at a join, and the two cables were not joined in accordance withy the Australian Standard (we had a duty of care, with safety equipment to follow all laws and standards, so we were negligent).

 

With your crocodile signs, the tourists were stealing them, so the local council placed the signs on poles out in the water; that made it worse; the Europeans were wading out to have their photo taken next to the pole.

 

You could put one at the Base of Mount Everest where even experts die .

The Courts look at skill steps, so this is quite different to an innocent girl being offered a ride on a quad bike.

 

 

rather than lawyers apportioning blame acing to LAW and your ability to fund your case. "WE have deeper pockets than YOU'. Oft stated as a warning. Your access to legal redress shouldn't be determined by your cash reserves, but in the real world it is.

Yes, but that's on both sides. Public Liability lawyers may offer a no win no fee service, but you have to pay all the costs, and there's no guarantee you'll win. As a defendant you have no option. No one's saying the law is fair.

To attempt to clarify, Turbs.I understand that it has been judged that way, and that's the path our legal system is going down....what I am sayings is....in my opinion it has poorly dealt with and my opinion of our legal system and those who are abusing it is not likely to change, until we get some sort of equilibrium where the actual person responsible is held accountable.

I think RE above explains it much better than I.

Let's assume you are not a civil engineer.

 

If you decide to innocently walk out on to a jetty or over a bridge, and the owner of that bridge has been saving money by not replacing bolts as they rust through, and the last, critical bolt has just rusted through, then how is that your fault?

 

You're just an innocent member of the public who decided to go for a walk.

 

 

The point M61A1 I think is making is that its the Judgement - i.e. the Judges, that are screwing up this country by laying blame 100% on employers.

I know exactly the point M61A1 is trying to make, and if you look back you'll see him taking the same line previously, but it's only going to take him to grief. The system will take care of him through his own pocket.

The Judges are not laying blame 100% on employers; if you study the cases, or if you are involved in any as I've been you'll realise that the claimant has to prove negligence, so is on the back foot from the start.

 

I've seen many cases fail, with no compensation paid, and most are settled out of court without any blame being apportioned.

 

The point of showing you this judgement, is that your PL cover now needs to cover single of multiple cases of $12 million - about double what it used to be.

 

It may be in line with previous cases but that doesn't make it right.

If you want to pull the judgement in this case apart, you'll first need to get the transcript and read the arguments; M61A1 has disingenuously inferred the girl might have been brain damaged or stupid. She only needs to be an innocent member of the population. If she had been a champion trail bike rider, or even had been an experienced farm hand woth an ATO for quad bikes, the case may have gone a different way.

 

Not knowing the details of this incident my comments will be generic:- The only way that an employer can be fully responsible for the accident is if the employee was forced or coerced into operating the machinery, i.e. employee: "I'm not riding that quad, it's dangerous!", employer: "If you don't then you are fired!".

In the transport industry we now have Chain of Responsibility laws, so that if that exchange took place and the employee was subsequently injured, there would be a criminal charge.

An employer can be fully negligent, and even if you take someone for a ride, and decide to do some sightseeing below 5oo feet you can be fully negligent. That's decided on a case by case basis.

 

The legal system has to balance "Duty of Care" with "Duty of responsibility", the employee or private citizen also has a "Duty of Care" to act responsibly and show care for their own wellbeing. If we keep going down this path of blaming everything on the Corporate/Employer/Wealthy entity and nothing on the individual/employee/poor then no one will want to employ people, no one will build/construct/manufacture anything and the companies and wealthy will all move to a country that has some common sense.

Those factors are taken into account in each case; as I mentioned earlier, we are not talking about a change here which might entice people to move to another country; the basics haven't changed, the negligent are just getting bigger news coverage.

 

 

I never argued that it was too expensive to fix the quad. I said the state of the legal system and those that believe it to be just, is just hideous. Where is her responsibility? Sure, if they could prove that she was mentally incompetent, and she was in his care, there might be a case ( in my world), but no, she was supposedly a normal functioning human, that did something stupid, and now her and her family blame someone else. These sort of cases and outcomes are taking us down a very dangerous path. Nothing for our legal profession and judges to be proud of.

The girl was judged to be the innocent party otherwise there may have been a partial judgement or a settlement out of court.

She might have been stupid in your opinion, but that wasn't the way it was judged, and the way it was judged is in line with previous cases, including one where a plant operator was killed in Melbourne decades ago because his employer gave him a machine with defective brakes.

 

These sort of cases are putting the blame exactly where it belongs, and sure they're dangerous for the people who don't want to carry out their duty of care, but the beauty of the system is they are the ones who pay.

 

 

You don't get , do you.? I know what the legal requirement is, I just strongly believe that, a lot of laws in this country have it backwards. As usual, they removed the responsibility from the person actually at fault, and made some else responsible for the stupidity. We will never go forward as a nation, while you can sue someone else for you stupidity.Yes, it was a nasty occurrence, but any fool could see that coming a mile away, but the legal outcome is f#cked up.

Whatever happened to being responsible for your actions?

The person at fault, the person who allowed a girl to get on a quad bike with a flat tyre, no brakes, and no helmet was judged to have (a) owed a duty of care to the girl and (b) breached that duty of care. That's the way the law has been since 1932.

The Court made him responsible for his actions.

 

The only thing which has changed is that in the mid 1980's governments had finally had a gutfull of financing the reckless and stopped paying out on their behalf, and has made them foot the bill for their own stupidity. No one can argue that it's too expensive to pump up a tyre or fix the brakes on a quad bike.

 

 

I would be a reasonably sound argument, that since she chose to ride quad bike with flat tyres, no brakes and helmet, that she has a lot responsibility for the outcome, unless of course she was brain damaged before the accident.People like this are the reason almost everything in this country is outlawed. I hope her lawyers and that magistrate are proud of themselves.

You are still looking at the situation in the reverse; in Donoghue v Stevenson, Mrs Donoghue drank the bottle of ginger beer, not knowing there was a danger; she wasn't required to know and understand the drink bottling process.

In this case the farmer had a duty of care to keep the quad bike in the equivalent of roadworthy condition and ensure that anyone riding it had a helmet.

 

 

He's effectively performing as a commercial pilot, so he should be maintaining a higher level of all skills and obligations.

 

 

This one would just about be a new record, based on what it is going to cost to maintain this girl fopr life.

 

Note what the owner's duties of care were in this case; there are definite parallels with RA aircraft.

 

What farmers need to know about the $12 million quad bike case

 

 

Your the one that said

Yes, all true.

If he was headed away from you, red is to your port.

 

If he was headed towards you, red is to your starboard.

 

 

Not too many pilots around here apparently.

 

 

They're not switchable, no different on twins.

 

Designed to tell if an aircraft is coming towards you or going away. Red is port.

 

 

Depends which way it was headed.

 

 

Hear,Hear!It therefore surprises me that RAAus see the route to improving our safety record as being via employing several 'safety officers' who may be dedicated to creating a 'culture-of-safety' but have no credibility in 'aviation'. Given the Presidents' assertion that, 'people are resistant to change': how does he expect positive change when it's being driven by spending lots of money - but is 'top down'? Of course pilots are resistant to preaching from the lofty heights of Canberra. Just how will RAAus change this 'resistance-to-change' ?.

 

A culture is best developed from the grassroots up. Therefore, it is really the role of the flying schools to imbue their trainees with sound, practical, common sense safety learning. Wasn't it Goebbels who, (infamously), said - 'give me one generation of children and I will change society'. You have to start at the source.

 

I've seen 50+ years of CASA produced 'safety' messages which have absolutely no influence on the accident rates. RAAus is continuing down the same path and it is not, ever, going to create the desired outcome. It does find favour with our regulator because RAAus can point to the number of staff and program costs - just as the regulator can. Of course, the regulator never accepts blame for anything, so RAAus is likely going to wear the approbrium for the failure of this latest effort. What neither can do is point to positive safety outcomes. Too hard!

 

Spend the safety budget where it has a chance of working.

Hear,Hear!It therefore surprises me that RAAus see the route to improving our safety record as being via employing several 'safety officers' who may be dedicated to creating a 'culture-of-safety' but have no credibility in 'aviation'. Given the Presidents' assertion that, 'people are resistant to change': how does he expect positive change when it's being driven by spending lots of money - but is 'top down'? Of course pilots are resistant to preaching from the lofty heights of Canberra. Just how will RAAus change this 'resistance-to-change' ?.

 

A culture is best developed from the grassroots up. Therefore, it is really the role of the flying schools to imbue their trainees with sound, practical, common sense safety learning. Wasn't it Goebbels who, (infamously), said - 'give me one generation of children and I will change society'. You have to start at the source.

 

I've seen 50+ years of CASA produced 'safety' messages which have absolutely no influence on the accident rates. RAAus is continuing down the same path and it is not, ever, going to create the desired outcome. It does find favour with our regulator because RAAus can point to the number of staff and program costs - just as the regulator can. Of course, the regulator never accepts blame for anything, so RAAus is likely going to wear the approbrium for the failure of this latest effort. What neither can do is point to positive safety outcomes. Too hard!

 

Spend the safety budget where it has a chance of working.

I agree with you; I've previously handled safety for a State, and our Federal Administrator coordinated us. That was with a "bottom up" volunteer Compliance and Enforcement policy which operated at about 30 locations around Australia every weekend.

With the two or three safety messages we've seen under the top down method, which were reasonable, how many people remember them. Will that method prevent another Ferris Wheel incident? Or would an Australia- wide CE structure reach those local clubs better?

 

 

Interesting dialogue here, completely isolated by a wall between this group and RAA Ltd who have just "communicated" with ............this group.

 

They have not mentioned what you are talking about and you have not mentioned what they are talking about, just two ships passing in the night.

 

Under those circumstances, while there's nothing wrong with chewing the fat over how something should be managed, you're now a couple of layers away from where it will make the slightest difference.