In this Senate Estimate session, I asked questions regarding helicopter pilot safety procedures and was informed about the minimum heights required for flying over residential areas, along with general safety protocols.
I also learned about the process for filing complaints and the types of evidence that would be helpful to confirm any reported breaches. The CASA representatives were quite helpful and informative.
For years, I’ve been trying to get the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to admit responsibility for allowing vaccine mandates on pilots, and the risk of injury that comes with that. I’ve been shocked at how evasive, argumentative and secretive CASA has been over this simple issue, that there is a risk of injury from vaccines, therefore making them mandatory introduces a level of risk into the cockpit.
CASA has lied, refused to answer questions they could have answered, and hidden witnesses from inquiry. As you can see from this session, there is a protection racket in place for this failure of an agency and Australian pilots are suffering hugely as a result.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again. Could I have Dr Manderson to the desk, please. Dr Manderson, I asked you previously about the risk of myocarditis because you claimed to pilots that there was a higher chance of getting myocarditis from COVID than from the vaccine. I provided you with a systematic review that refutes that. It’s entitled, ‘COVID-19—associated cardiac pathology at the postmortem evaluation: a collaborative systematic review’. It was published in the Clinical Microbiology and Infection journal on 23 March 2022. I asked you to provide me with the evidence you had to base your previous statement about myocarditis on. That was in SQ23-004809. You undertook to provide the evidence that you had, but in the answer you simply referred to the TGA, not to evidence you had assessed to make the comment you made. I’d like to ask: did you write the answer to SQ23-004809 or did CASA officials?
Ms Spence: I think we provided a follow-up answer to that and we advised that the response was provided consistent with the requirements of the standing orders around responding to Senate estimates questions.
Senator ROBERTS: Who did you provide that to?
Ms Spence: That was the answer to 00268 from committee question No. 254.
Senator ROBERTS: Who wrote the first response?
Ms Spence: The question was directed to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority provided that response. That’s consistent with the guidelines for officials.
Senator ROBERTS: So who wrote the response?
Ms Spence: I approved the response.
Senator ROBERTS: Is that the guideline to responses that the government has just put out?
Ms Spence: No. These date back to February 2015. I can table that response if that would be helpful for you.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, please. In the interests of time, we won’t go through it now. One of the studies provided by the TGA in what you reference was from Anders Husby et al. It’s entitled ‘Clinical outcomes of myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination in four Nordic countries: population based cohort study’. Do you still stand behind that evidence to say that the incidence of myocarditis is lower?
Dr Manderson: Yes, I do.
Senator ROBERTS: When you actually read that study, it says nine of the 109 patients were readmitted to hospital with myocarditis after COVID, while 62 of 530 were readmitted with myocarditis after receiving the vaccination. That’s eight per cent for COVID myocarditis and 12 per cent for the COVID vaccine myocarditis. Fifty per cent more people were readmitted to the hospital with myocarditis after getting the jab than after getting COVID. The evidence you cited doesn’t appear to support your statement that there’s a higher chance of myocarditis from COVID than from the vaccine. Can you explain your contradiction?
Mr Marcelja: I’d like to make an important point before Dr Manderson answers that question. We have tried to explain to the committee on a number of occasions that CASA’s role, when it comes to vaccinations, is purely related to aviation safety. I can tell you again today that there is no link to aviation safety from the matters that you’re talking about. So, while Dr Manderson can express her medical view about the questions you’ve asked, they actually have no bearing on CASA’s role and CASA’s remit when it comes to vaccinating the population.
Senator ROBERTS: They have enormous bearing on Dr Manderson’s integrity.
Ms Spence: I find that commentary quite disappointing coming from a Senator, but we’ll allow—
Senator Carol Brown: The questions do appear to be out of order. Senator ROBERTS’s questions do not seem to be for CASA. They’re not part of CASA’s core duties. So they really need to be asked in another committee. He’s asking about— Senator McKENZIE interjecting—
ACTING CHAIR: Let the minister finish.
Senator Carol Brown: I’m asking the chair to rule whether Senator ROBERTS’s questions are in order for CASA.
Senator ROBERTS: Chair, I would point out that we have received hundreds of calls from pilots. We’ve received emails and letters. We’ve had person-to-person conversations. Pilots from both Qantas and Virgin are absolutely terrified by what the injections are doing to some of their pilots. This is a fundamental thing, and it goes back to Mr Marcelja some time ago and also to Dr Manderson.
ACTING CHAIR: Do you want to make a quick comment, Senator McKENZIE?
Senator McKENZIE: Yes, I do. Nothing the minister has mentioned goes to the standing orders and whether anything that Senator ROBERTS has asked is in breach of the standing orders. Therefore he has the right in this committee to ask public officials, who earn a lot of money—more than most of the people around this table—to answer the questions on behalf of the constituency that he represents in this place. I would expect that the officials are very experienced and are very patient and will be able to respond to Senator ROBERTS’s questions.
ACTING CHAIR: We will keep going with the line of questioning. I was also going to say that, if there are any particular areas that you, as experienced officials, feel are better answered by another agency or another department, please flag that with us here. I don’t think it’s our role to tell senators what they can and can’t ask, but we’re going to leave it to your judgement too. I think the minister’s concern is that maybe some of these questions may be more appropriate in another committee throughout this fortnight of estimates. Anyway, let’s continue. Senator ROBERTS, you have the call.
Senator ROBERTS: Regardless of what’s in that study, is it your academic opinion, Dr Manderson, that a collaborative systematic review can be completely nullified by a single population based cohort study?
Dr Manderson: A single population based cohort study is one piece of evidence within many thousands of pieces of evidence that have been published around COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis related to that. It would be scientifically and academically incorrect to rely on a single study or even a single piece of information within a single study to be selectively reported and base an entire policy decision or clinical opinion on that cherry-picked small piece of information. It’s a really fundamental part of research and critical analysis that you understand the breadth and the depth of clinical information that’s reported in the literature, how the reporting is done and even the fundamentals of analysis of individual articles relating to things like sources of bias and sources of statistical significance and relevance in that sort of thing. So a single study should never be relied on and a single piece of data within a single study should never be relied on. It is the breadth of information from a range of clinical literature as well as its interpretation and application—it’s called the concept of generalisability and applicability—to a population, as it applies to a group, when you’re forming an opinion, using that information, as to how it applies to your cohort.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I understand all the terms you use, believe it or not. You didn’t answer my question. You went around it with a lot of terms. Is it your academic opinion that a collaborative systematic review can be completely nullified by a single population based cohort study? Which would you put more credence in?
Dr Manderson: A collaborative systematic review—sometimes we call those meta-analyses—is given more weight in terms of evidentiary power, I suppose, than a single study. The more data points you get from the more studies that are published and analysed, the more reliable the evidence will be.
Senator ROBERTS: So you don’t think a systematic review, which I provided, trumps a cohort study in the hierarchy of research?
Dr Manderson: A systematic review is as good as the review process and the way in which it’s done. So there are important academic guidelines on the way systematic reviews should be done. That goes to the inclusion criteria for the articles that they refer to, the way they analyse the data within the articles that they’ve referenced and that they’ve selected to include, and the way that they have controlled for selection bias in choosing those articles. So there are systematic reviews that are—
Senator ROBERTS: Single article-to-article comparison: which is more valid and carries more weight?
Dr Manderson: Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that. A poorly conducted systematic review is not as good as a well conducted cohort study.
Senator ROBERTS: Given equal quality, which one carries more weight?
Dr Manderson: If they’re both conducted with great quality and equivalent quality, then a meta-analysis and systematic review of multiple data points is better than a single analysis—if they are done with the same level of quality.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I’ll move to my next question. None of the studies you referenced from the TGA were actually published at the time you made your statement to pilots about the risk of myocarditis. Did you actually have any evidence at the time you made the statement to pilots in February 2022? That’s what I asked. What evidence did you have? Nothing in your question on notice was available at that time—nothing. So what did you rely on?
Dr Manderson: By 2022, there had been tens of thousands of research articles published into COVID vaccines and the relationship between those and any adverse cardiac events. In particular, there were very large studies coming out of the countries that adopted COVID vaccination quite early. In particular, Hong Kong and Israel published a lot of data. That research was published in globally—
Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me, Dr Manderson—
ACTING CHAIR: Senator ROBERTS, sorry, but we should allow the witness to conclude her answer.
Senator ROBERTS: She’s not answering the question.
ACTING CHAIR: It doesn’t matter.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Keep going.
ACTING CHAIR: Just hear her out, and then you’ll have an opportunity to ask her another question.
Dr Manderson: That evidence was published in globally highly regarded journals: the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal cardiology edition, the Lancet and the publications from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the CDC. Those source articles formed the basis of the advice that was provided to medical practitioners in Australia by the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the advice from the chief health officer of Australia and the public health authorities of each state. In 2022, all of that information was available, and all of that information leading up to when I did that webinar was what I based that on.
Senator ROBERTS: Your diversion is classically known as an appeal to authority. You put so many appeals to authority, and that’s very, very clever, but I asked you a question—’at the time you made the statement to pilots’. That’s what I asked. You gave me a reference that was not available at the time you made that statement. I asked you just now: what evidence did you have, specifically, when you made that statement to pilots? Secondly, nothing in your question on notice was available at that time. Why?
ACTING CHAIR: I think Ms Spence wanted to add something before too. Ms Spence?
Ms Spence: Again, it goes to the direction that we’re going in with the conversation. I totally respect the importance of you being able to ask the questions, but I would like to put it on the record that every other country, every other national aviation authority, took the same approach that Australia did. We did not work in isolation in this space. I hear you’re talking about the information and discussion that Dr Manderson had with the pilots, but I’m struggling to understand what specific issue there is around the actions that CASA took during COVID, which, to me, would seem to be a far more important issue to get to the heart of. If you thought we’d done something wrong, something different or something unacceptable, I’d like to have that conversation, rather than a very detailed academic conversation around which of the thousand articles that were available at the time Dr Manderson relied on.
Senator CANAVAN: Chair, I would like to stress Senator McKENZIE’s point here. The witness is fine to raise a point of order, but any claim not to have to answer a question has to be grounded in the standing orders, precedents and practices of this Senate. Nothing you spoke about then, Ms Spence, did that. Otherwise, we’re just giving opportunities for people to cover themselves to avoid answering questions. I think Senator ROBERTS questions are perfectly fine. They’re about public statements made by witnesses, and that is definitely able to be asked about at Senate estimates inquiries.
ACTING CHAIR: Not to summarise, but I’m mindful of time, and I don’t want to spend too much time on this. I think the point Ms Spence was trying to make was that they’re happy to keep answering questions from Senator ROBERTS. I don’t think that’s in dispute. I think she was just trying to see if there was more available time, with the time we have, to help Senator ROBERTS answer his other questions. Can we just keep continuing? I don’t know where we left to. Senator ROBERTS, do you have another question for the witnesses before us?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, I do. I have lots of questions. Ms Spence, you, Mr Marcelja and, I think, Dr Manderson have all said that the ultimate responsibility for aircraft safety in this country is with you three. With the COVID injections—that’s where this all started—it’s with you too. Specifically, Mr Marcelja, you told me in one of the Senate estimates responses that Dr Manderson is the chief medical expert. That’s where I’m going. Is that clear?
Ms Spence: Is there a question there, Senator?
Senator ROBERTS: I’m responding to your comment. Was I clear?
Ms Spence: I’m sorry. I still really don’t understand the direction that you’re going in. I’m happy to keep answering questions.
Senator ROBERTS: You don’t understand safety? Alright. Well, let’s continue. Ms Spence, I asked CASA in November 2023 to do a search of the medical record system in question SQ23-004943 for key conditions, and you told me that was not possible. That’s not true. CASA can do a free tech search of your medical records system for key terms, and report the amount of times a word appears. In fact you did exactly that in a February 2023 question on notice SQ23-003267, where you told me: During 2022 … there were 27 instances where pericarditis or myocarditis was mentioned in the clinical notes for a medical certificate assessment. Have you misled the committee on whether CASA can do a search for the terms I’ve asked for in the November question, given that you actually did that in February?
Mr Marcelja: If I recall, I answered that question. And what I told you, and I stand by today, is that our medical record system is not designed to capture those specific conditions and diseases in a way that reporting would be meaningful. While we could search the free text comments of our medical record system for those terms, those terms can appear in free text because a patient mentions them in a consultation because they believe they might have it, because of an actual diagnosis. We stand by the evidence we gave, which is that our medical record system doesn’t capture information on those specific diseases in a way that can be reported meaningfully. If you’d like to give me the reference of your question, I can reiterate the answer that we gave.
Senator ROBERTS: It is possible to do a search in your database for the words I’ve asked for in SQ23- 004943, like you did in SQ23-003267? I understand your comments. And you can provide an answer for how many times they are mentioned in the clinical notes from medical certificate assessments in 2022 and 2023. I’d like you to take it on notice and to provide it.
Ms Spence: If we do that it won’t be meaningful. Again, we’ll take it on notice, but what Mr Marcelja was saying was that any reference would be picked up, but it doesn’t mean that it’s actually related to that particular condition.
Mr Marcelja: I’ve got 4943 in front of me, and at the end of that question we say: Providing the information requested would require a … collation of free-text information from tens of thousands of records and would be an unreasonable diversion of resources.
Senator ROBERTS: Has CASA been provided with the guidebook circulated by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet giving advice on how to answer questions on notice?
Ms Spence: Not that I’m aware of. It’s certainly not been drawn to my attention. I did hear the questioning yesterday, but I haven’t seen the circular that was referred to.
Senator ROBERTS: If we go back to my first question of Mr Marcelja, I asked on what authority did Qantas and Virgin inject their pilots with an untested gene therapy based treatment that had not been approved by the TGA and that had not had testing done by the TGA or by the FDA in America. You said you relied upon experts. I said, ‘Which experts?’ You said, ‘Experts.’ I said, ‘Which experts?’ You said, ‘Experts.’ And when I said, ‘Which experts?’ for the fourth time, I think it was, you said, ‘International experts.’ Dr Manderson, which experts’ advice did CASA rely upon for turning an eye away from the mandated injections of healthy pilots with the COVID injections?
Mr Marcelja: I’d like to correct the statement you’ve made, because what I recall—and if you tell me the date I’ve the Hansard in front of me—telling you we had no role in intervening in the Australian government’s public health response to COVID. We did not intervene to prevent the vaccination of pilots, just like we do not intervene in the prevention of any other administration of any medicine or any vaccination. So if a pilot was to have an adverse reaction to a vaccination, the aviation safety response to that is that that pilot excludes themselves from flying. So that’s what our procedures are based on. We have no role in intervening in public health responses, mandating or not mandating the administration of vaccinations or any medicine, for that matter.
Senator ROBERTS: The Prime Minister at the time, Scott Morrison, said every night for about a fortnight, ‘There are no vaccine mandates in this country.’ That was a lie. But what I’m asking you is not whether or not you’re going to interfere in a vaccine mandate. What I’m asking you is: what were your reassurances that these vaccines—these injections—would not be unsafe to pilots? Did you do any high-altitude testing? What are the results of that?
Ms Spence: Senator—
Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking Mr Marcelja.
Ms Spence: Being responsible for the organisation, we treated the COVID vaccinations the same way that we treat all vaccinations. We do not do our own independent testing. What we do ensure is that the system works such that if there was an adverse reaction the pilot would not fly. I’ll be very clear here: as we’ve said at, I think, the last five hearings, there has not been, internationally, any evidence of any pilot being incapacitated as a result of a COVID vaccination while on duty.
Senator ROBERTS: There are 1,000. I was told by a lawyer working with Southwest Airlines in America that 1,000 pilots have not been able to pass their medical since getting their COVID shots.
Ms Spence: That’s not what I said.
Senator ROBERTS: There are lots of them.
Ms Spence: What I said was that there has not been a single example of a pilot being incapacitated on duty as a result of a COVID vaccination.
ACTING CHAIR: Senator, do you have more questions? I need to move the call around.
Senator ROBERTS: I do have some more questions, but if you move it round and come back to me that’s fine.
At the last estimates in May, I asked CASA which experts they had consulted for their advice. After some delay, CASA admitted they had relied solely on information from the Chief Medical Officer, without conducting any independent research. They stated their sources were limited to the TGA and FDA and that the only data used came from Pfizer, which has since admitted to numerous fatalities.
Ms. Spence said she was aware AstraZeneca had been withdrawn and that Novavax had also been withdrawn. However, she noted that there had been no reported adverse events in the cockpit.
I raised concerns about CASA’s varying health test requirements for pilots of large commercial aircraft versus small private planes and pointed out that these differing standards posed a risk in shared airspace.
ACTING CHAIR: Thank you to your legal officer. Senator Roberts?
Senator ROBERTS: Mr Marcelja could not tell me the specific names of the experts upon which CASA relied for turning a blind eye to Qantas and Virgin on mandates, which weren’t government mandates. Dr Manderson, can you tell me specifically which medical experts you relied upon for allowing Qantas and Virgin to mandate the vaccines? Who gave you the advice? Dr Manderson: The chief health officer of Australia at the time would be one important name.
Senator ROBERTS: Did you actually get his advice?
Ms Spence: I think we have gone through this previously. I appreciate—
Senator ROBERTS: That was with Mr Marcelja—
Ms Spence: But I think what we—
Senator ROBERTS: and he wouldn’t tell me the names of the chief medical officer—
Ms Spence: Sorry, Senator. Do you want me to finish?
Senator ROBERTS: Do you want me to allow you to keep interrupting?
ACTING CHAIR: Senator Roberts, come on. You know that’s against standing orders.
Senator ROBERTS: There’s been a lot of protection of—
ACTING CHAIR: No. Allow Ms Spence to conclude her answer to your first question.
Senator ROBERTS: She’s not answering my question; Dr Manderson is.
ACTING CHAIR: I thought I heard Ms Spence, but—
Senator ROBERTS: She interrupted.
ACTING CHAIR: I’ll allow CASA to answer your question. CASA?
Ms Spence: All I was going to say is that we’ve tried to explain before that we don’t get individual advice on specific issues; we rely on the advice of the health experts, and, in this case—as Dr Manderson has said—the chief health officer of Australia was basically a key source. But the TGA was also providing advice. I think we have actually put that in response to questions or in some of the Hansard previously.
Senator ROBERTS: The reason I’m frying up is that Mr Marcelja said that it was the experts, and he wouldn’t name them, and the experts wouldn’t name them. And then we went to international experts, to I gave up. Your answer is the Chief Medical Officer—not the chief health officer. I presume you’re talking about the federal Chief Medical Officer.
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s important. The Chief Health Officer is—
Mr Marcelja: Senator, perhaps you could refer me to your question specifically so that I’ve got in front of me what you’re talking about. What date was that? I’ve got the Hansard in front of me.
Senator ROBERTS: I can’t remember the date.
Mr Marcelja: You can’t remember it. My recollection of the conversation was that you were asking me on what basis we were taking the actions we were taking, and I told you that we were taking no actions to intervene in the Australian government’s response. The advice, as Dr Manderson pointed out, about Australia’s response was not being led by us; it was being led by health authorities. So we did not intervene and override the advice of Australia’s Chief Medical Officer or other health experts.
Senator ROBERTS: You have told me that the buck ends here for aviation safety. You did not do any testing at high-altitude pressures, correct?
Ms Spence: No.
Senator ROBERTS: You just assumed Pfizer, the Chief Medical Officer and the TGA knew that the pressure would be okay at high altitude?
Mr Marcelja: As I tried to explain a moment ago, what we’re interested in from a vaccination or medication perspective is: is it likely that you will get into a cockpit, have a sudden, incapacitating event and be unable to fly the plane? That’s our primary concern. For all vaccinations, including the vaccinations that were being—
Senator ROBERTS: In the cockpit at altitude.
Mr Marcelja: at altitude—our primary concern was whether that medication, the vaccination, would cause that event to happen. There is no evidence in Australia or anywhere around the world. We’ve checked with our regulatory authorities and colleagues in the US and Europe. There is no evidence of that event occurring anywhere in the world over the last several years. I think we were on pretty sound footing not to intervene and prevent a particular cohort of the population from being vaccinated when that’s not our role.
Senator ROBERTS: Let me ask you a few more questions around that. I want you to remember at all times in your answers to me that, when it comes to safety, the buck stops with you, CASA. There is no high-altitude testing done that you’re aware of. Are you aware that the TGA, when I asked them what tests they did in Australia on the vaccines, said they did no tests and relied on the FDA? Are you aware of that?
Mr Marcelja: I reiterate what I said. They are not matters for us. We look at it from an aviation safety lens. Dr Manderson has been involved in international panels looking at aviation safety on a number of different topics. I’m sure she can step you through that. There is no evidence whatsoever over several years now of there being an aviation safety risk. That’s our concern. Whether the vaccine has other effects or issues—
Senator ROBERTS: You relied upon the TGA. That was one of the people you relied on.
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: The TGA admits it did no testing and that it relied upon the FDA. The FDA, prior to the TGA’s announcement, admitted that it did no testing and relied on—wait for it—Pfizer.
Mr Marcelja: Are you suggesting—
Senator ROBERTS: Now we find out Pfizer in their trials had hundreds of fatalities.
Ms Spence: I don’t know how many times we can say this, but we treated the COVID vaccinations the same way we treat all vaccinations, and we don’t do individual, independent testing. But—
Senator ROBERTS: Let me continue, then. Are you aware of AstraZeneca being withdrawn?
Ms Spence: Yes, but I think—
Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware—
Ms Spence: Senator, sorry. I don’t think it’s quite as clear cut as saying it’s been withdrawn. They’re no longer using it. It wasn’t around inefficacy at the time, but now they’re no longer producing it. Yes, we are aware.
Senator ROBERTS: Do blood clots say anything to you. What about Novavax? We understand that has been withdrawn just recently.
Ms Spence: I wasn’t aware of that one.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Excess deaths, 13 per cent, in line with the COVID injections—before COVID outbreaks in Queensland and Western Australia—what would make you investigate whether or not pilots are suffering from COVID injection adverse events? Because you don’t do testing on pilots; you rely upon pilots to turn themselves in. What would make you investigate it?
Ms Spence: The only thing that would make us investigate is if there was an adverse reaction in the cockpit which could be directly attributed to a COVID vaccination.
Senator ROBERTS: What if I told you that pilots are telling us that they know of mates who have had adverse events but they won’t speak up for fear of losing their job?
Ms Spence: I would encourage them to report through the confidential reporting arrangements that I mentioned, both with us and with the ATSB, because we are not getting those reports, and there are mechanisms for them to do that.
Senator ROBERTS: With pilots losing their jobs, I wonder.
Ms Spence: As I said, they’re confidential, so they don’t need to report who they work for—but just giving us the information, if that is actually occurring, would be incredibly beneficial.
Senator ROBERTS: Given that CASA use Austroads fitness to drive as a guideline for recertification for TIA or stroke in class 5 medicals, on what are the class 1 and 2 medical recertification guidelines based, and do they differ from class 5 guidelines? If so, how and why?
Ms Spence: The standards for class 1 and 2, which is the commercial pilot and the private pilot medical certificates, are based on the International Civil Aviation Organization medical standards for certification for pilots—for commercial and private. They are quite different to the domestic Australian class 5 medical certificate, which is not an ICAO certificate and doesn’t need to comply with those medical standards. So class 1 and class 2 reference the international pilot standards.
Senator ROBERTS: And class 5—you make up the standards?
Ms Spence: Class 5 medical standard was developed through really extensive consultation through technical working groups with both doctors and pilots, with operational input from pilots in particular. It also went through a really strong risk assessment process within CASA to determine what those standards should be, mapped against the risk treatments for the operational restrictions with the class 5.
Senator ROBERTS: But my question was: CASA developed those standards? I’m not interested in the process. CASA developed those standards?
Ms Spence: Yes, CASA developed those standards.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. CASA allow airlines to push pilots to the limit as a routine practice. This is facilitated by a concession given to the airlines masquerading as ‘fatigue risk management’. CASA have allowed airlines to use this system as a shield when continuing to roster pilots to fly unreasonably long hours. Do class 5 medical holders and class 1 and 2 medical holders operate in the same airspace?
ACTING CHAIR: What are you quoting? I think the witnesses would like to see the source of that quote.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m not quoting from anything here. My research assistant—
ACTING CHAIR: I thought you were.
Senator ROBERTS: No, I’m not quoting.
ACTING CHAIR: Okay.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m just quoting the fatigue risk management title.
Mr Marcelja: So, for the record, we don’t agree with the statement you just said.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Do class 5 medical holders and class 1 and 2 medical holders operate in the same airspace?
Ms Spence: Yes, they do.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Is a class 5 medical holder a single pilot operation?
Dr Manderson: Yes, it is.
Mr Marcelja: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. You had some doubts, Dr Manderson?
ACTING CHAIR: I think they answered the question.
Dr Manderson: Sorry, only because I felt it was self-evident that—but, yes, it is.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you. So, if a class 5 medical holder with a recent history of stroke or TIA after four weeks of grounding is back in an aeroplane at the holding point at an airport and has a relapse, his or her aircraft taxis out in front of the landing heavy jet fully laden. Class 1 and 2 medical holders can operate with multicrew and autopilots as well as current pilots repositioning as passengers in the cabin on numerous flights. Class 5 pilots have no back-up. Is that correct so far?
Ms Spence: Senator, I—
Mr Marcelja: Perhaps you could repeat the question. I’m not sure what the question was in that.
Senator ROBERTS: We’ve got a heavy laden jet coming in to land with class 1 and 2 medical holders, with other back-ups on their position, and we’ve got a class 5 just about to go in front of the path and they have a relapse.
Ms Spence: It feels like you’re describing—without being derogatory—a weekend warrior landing in the same place as a large commercial air transport operator, and I’m just trying to—
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Let’s continue then. We’ll get on to your weekend warriors. What value does CASA place on the designated medical examiner’s ability to diagnose and recertify pilots? And what situations require CASA to intervene with their diagnosis?
Dr Manderson: So the designated aviation medical examiners are absolutely fundamental to us being able to make safe decisions about issuing medical certificates. They are the doctors that perform the examination and interact with the pilots and air traffic controllers at every medical certificate renewal application. We trust their assessment as clinicians as to whether or not there is any medically significant or safety relevant medical condition present in that pilot or air traffic controller applicant. We take their clinical information and their advice when we decide whether or not to issue a medical certificate.
Senator ROBERTS: Why then is CASA advocating self-certification for class 5 medicals—as I understand it?
Mr Marcelja: We are not advocating. What we’re presenting are options for different types of operations. So a pilot that chooses to operate with a single passenger in a light aircraft can choose a class 5 certificate or they can choose any other certificate. So we’re not advocating any particular medical. We’re creating options and different pathways for different pilots in different circumstances, and those circumstances are adjusted based on risk and the level of medical certification.
Ms Spence: This is a matter that has been under debate for a number of years, around CASA being a proportionate regulator. Under the class 5 medical, we put restrictions on the way you can operate, therefore you can operate within those constraints and then we will review to see how that’s working over time. We’re monitoring it closely to make sure that we’re auditing people’s self-declarations and the like. So I think people do expect us to be a proportionate risk-based regulator, and I think the class 5 medical is an example of how we can do that.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s what I’m exploring here. I’m trying to understand. I’m not a pilot. Considering CASA AvMed can override opinions of consulting physicians and specialists during the medical renewal process, how could the view of a CASA AvMed doctor come to its own diagnosis of an individual pilot in the absence of face-to-face consultation and overrule the opinions of independent specialists and consultants? Is that possible?
Dr Manderson: The aero-medical decision-making process is more than and different to the clinical decisionmaking process. The medical assessment process that we’re required to follow by the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations and the ICAO standards and recommended practices is that we take all of the advice that is available from all of the clinicians—including their expert opinions, the investigations and reports that are available, the medical examination from the DAME—and we apply that information against the medical standard for medical certification. The key difference is that the medical specialists who are seeing the patient and the patient pilot or controller are performing an assessment of the medical status of that person as a clinician for diagnosis and management, not for aero-medical risk assessment and not for medical certification processes. So it’s quite a different role and a different process. We consider their advice, but their advice is about the condition and its disease and severity, not about its safety relevance for medical certification.
ACTING CHAIR: Senator Roberts, we need to break for dinner. Are you close to finishing?
Senator ROBERTS: We might put these on next Senate estimates.
ACTING CHAIR: We are going to release CASA now. Thank you very much.
CASA’s credibility is in free fall.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is meant to be the authority regulating aviation safety and yet senior executives have free and exclusive access to Chairman’s Lounge and Virgin Beyond Lounge that aren’t available to the public. These exclusive memberships were not listed as gifts or benefits on the register until AFTER I drew attention to them. CASA quietly updated their website with these gift memberships without issuing a clarification.
How is this not a conflict of interest? The behaviour of these senior CASA members is bordering on contemptuous and as the Chair noted during this Estimates session, it’s sloppy.
What else is hidden from the public by Miss Spence and other CASA executives?
CHAIR: Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Let’s tidy up some loose ends. We’ve got a fresh set of questions coming in May. I asked at the previous estimates whether CASA was aware of all the incidents in relation to Qantas on a list that I circulated. Ms Spence told me that these were all ones that CASA was aware of, yet in the answer to question on notice SQ23003791 CASA clarified it actually wasn’t aware of five of the provided incidents. Can you clarify whether those events were then self-reported or if CASA had to make inquiries to Qantas to initiate those reports?
Ms Spence: Sorry, I don’t think that was at the last hearings. Was it at the hearing before that you raised those issues?
Senator ROBERTS: It was October-November 2023.
Ms Spence: It wasn’t at our last hearings, I don’t think.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s the date I’ve got written on the Hansard reference.
Ms Spence: Sorry, I’ll have to take that on notice. I don’t have the information in front of me. Apologies.
Senator ROBERTS: So, presumably, the answer, presumably from CASA, says that four of the five incidents—they say in brackets afterwards, ‘this event has now been reported’. So at the time it wasn’t.
Ms Spence: Sorry, I genuinely don’t have that document in front of me so I can’t—
Senator ROBERTS: I’m telling you what the document says.
Ms Spence: I know. And it’s very difficult for me not having it in front of me to be able to explain what the context was.
Senator ROBERTS: Would you like to make a copy of this?
Mr Marcelja: Sorry, I’m just looking for it as well.
Ms Spence: I know the document you’re talking about, but I genuinely thought it was—
Mr Marcelja: A bit further back.
Ms Spence: My recollection was that you raised a list, and we said we thought most of them would have been covered. The reason we took it on notice was to test which ones we were aware of and which ones we weren’t aware of. And the ones that—
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll remind you that I asked you if you’d seen these incidents on the document. Without looking at the document, you said, ‘No, these are not on the document.’
Ms Spence: I doubt very much—
Senator ROBERTS: Then I said, ‘Would you please look at the document before answering?’ How can you have any credibility with me?
Ms Spence: Obviously I don’t.
Senator ROBERTS: No, you don’t. You don’t have a lot of credibility with many pilots either.
Ms Spence: I’m sorry. I just genuinely don’t. I’ll take on notice what it means when we say ‘this event has now been reported’.
Senator ROBERTS: You also told me that the frequency of incidents on the list that I gave you, before you’d seen it, was not out of the ordinary. If some of the incidents weren’t reported to you then it’s hard for you to say that there isn’t an increase in frequency, correct?
Ms Spence: That’s correct.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. If you look at the last one there, the October 2022 Perth-Sydney incident, it remained unreported. What is the status of your investigations on this incident?
Ms Spence: We don’t investigate. The ATSB investigates.
Senator ROBERTS: So you didn’t chase it up with Qantas?
Ms Spence: As I said, I’ll take on notice what it means when we say ‘this event has now been reported’ and what we did, but at the end of the day we do not do accident or incident investigations. Unidentified speaker: If I could—
Senator ROBERTS: I’m going to ask the questions here. That might be the question you’d like me to ask.
Ms Spence: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Have you inquired about that incident?
Ms Spence: I just said I’d take that on notice. I don’t know.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Let’s move on. Do you believe that senior leadership of the agency that is meant to be regulating aviation—that’s your agency—having access to the exclusive Qantas Chairman’s Lounge and Virgin Beyond Lounge creates a conflict of interest?
Ms Spence: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Not even as a potential perceived conflict of interest?
Ms Spence: No.
Senator ROBERTS: In the May 2022 Senate estimates your evidence was that all gifts and benefits were listed on your website under the gifts and benefits register. That wasn’t true, was it?
Ms Spence: I thought that they all were on the list. I haven’t deliberately misled the committee. If something wasn’t included, I apologise. But everything is certainly on the register now.
Senator ROBERTS: Now?
Ms Spence: And has been for some time.
Senator ROBERTS: If you put it on the register, that means you think it was a gift. But you told me it wasn’t a gift.
Mr Marcelja: We were pretty clear in our written response that those memberships predated people joining CASA. We clarified that.
Senator ROBERTS: I’ll get to that. That’s clarified in your opinion, but it doesn’t clarify it so far as the Public Service Association is concerned. Senior members of the aviation regulator had been given access to exclusive airline clubs that aren’t available to the public, and this was kept a secret from Australians. Yet you maintain that this doesn’t create even a potential conflict of interest.
Ms Spence: I don’t accept the premise that it was kept a secret.
Senator ROBERTS: We’ll get to that one too. This explanation from the Australian Public Service Commission is very important: “… Public confidence in APS agencies and the APS more broadly can be damaged when gifts and benefits that create a conflict of interest are accepted or not properly declared. The appearance of a conflict can be just as damaging to public confidence in public administration as a conflict which gives rise to a concern based on objective facts”. Having gifted access to exclusive aviation lounges is obviously a conflict of interest when you are the aviation regulator—the aviation regulator.
Ms Spence: No, we’re the aviation safety regulator.
Senator ROBERTS: This is regardless of whether the benefit predates the official’s employment, and this was not declared.
Ms Spence: I genuinely don’t recall us not being on the register—of me having Chairman’s Lounge and Virgin Beyond lounge membership. When I was in the department and first received those invitations to join those, it’s always been something that I’ve declared in any of my potential conflicts of interest. Notwithstanding that, I genuinely don’t believe it creates a conflict of interest.
Senator ROBERTS: Let me continue. It’s very concerning to me that you try to tell this committee that all benefits were declared on the gift register at a time they clearly were not. You made no mention of the fact that you had updated the register with these gifts—
Mr Marcelja: Senator, we—
Senator ROBERTS: Mr Marcelja, I’m trying to talk!
Ms Spence: Just—
Senator ROBERTS: You just quietly updated the webpage and tried to act like those things had been there properly for the entire time, and that’s not the case, is it? The gifts weren’t on the register at the time you gave evidence to this committee that they were. Ms Spence: Senator, I’ll have to take that on notice. I genuinely thought that they were always on the register. If they weren’t, they’re certainly on there now and it has never been a secret that I’ve had those lounge memberships.
Senator ROBERTS: Ms Spence, it seems that it’s contemptuous of this committee for you to try and just quietly update this information in the secretive manner that you have. Why not alert the committee that the previous evidence was incorrect and issue a clarification, which is what most honest public servants do?
Ms Spence: As we said in our response to your question, nothing was declared on the CASA gifts and benefits register as no lounge access had actually been provided to CASA executives or board members as a result of their roles in CASA.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s a furphy, Ms Spence! They have done—
Ms Spence: It’s not a furphy, Senator!
Senator ROBERTS: You’re making out that they had them before they joined CASA.
Ms Spence: They did—I did.
Senator ROBERTS: They still have them—
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: and they weren’t declared. Then, when you updated it to declare them, you didn’t advise the committee. You just did it quietly.
Ms Spence: I’m genuinely sorry that you feel that I’ve misled the committee—
Senator ROBERTS: It isn’t my feelings that matter! It’s the facts that matter—
Ms Spence: Well, I apologise to the committee unreservedly, but there was never any intention to mislead. As I said, the issue, as far as I can recall, was because you list things as they’re provided to you, and because they were already in the possession of myself and some of our board members prior to them actually being on the board they must not have been listed originally. They’re on there now, and I have nothing else I can say.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, does this—
Senator ROBERTS: It’s my last question. This brings much of the evidence that you’ve given to this committee into question, Ms Spence, if this is how you deal with answers that you later find are incorrect. We wouldn’t even know this unless someone had trawled back through the internet archives. You have apologised; is there anything else you need to apologise for in our exchanges?
Ms Spence: No, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: I don’t see you as a credible witness with your evidence, Ms Spence.
CHAIR: What I might do, Senator Roberts, due to the hour, is this. I have kept saying all day that we have that report about behaviour—you know what it is—and you have made your point. Ms Spence, it is sloppy—
Ms Spence: Yes.
CHAIR: Let’s get over it. The behaviour of politicians in this building over the last few years is pretty questionable too—but anyway! Senator Roberts, do you have further—
Senator ROBERTS: I have finished my questions, thank you, Chair.
Principal Medical Officer at the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has been absent during our previous senate estimates sessions despite my requests for her presence.
I asked her questions about her other roles and responsibilities, including her role as supervising GP and her other board positions. I also asked about her knowledge of pilot adverse events and what research underpins her position that such adverse events as myocarditis are predominantly caused by the COVID infection rather than the COVID injections.
It’s been a long wait to ask these questions of Dr Manderson and her staff appeared anxious to shield her from my line of inquiry. What do they have to hide?
Many of you have watched my previous sessions with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority as I question them on how much risk mandates introduced into the cockpit.
I was shocked to find out in a question on notice (they actually do come back with an answer eventually) that CASA’s medical systems don’t even have the ability to track adverse events or injuries. Whenever they’ve told me there’s no data to indicate a problem, it’s because they don’t have any data. They’re literally flying blind.
It seems because a pilot hasn’t had a stroke and crashed a plane yet, CASA thinks there’s ‘nothing to see here’. This level of negligence should be criminal.
List of QANTAS incidents
QANTAS B737
17/5/23
QF703 B737 Cairns-Brisbane
Engine damage, air return on one engine, PAN emergency declared. (Media reported)
5/5/23
QF 102 B737 Nandi – Sydney – engine surge and stall. PAN emergency declared into Sydney .. (Media reported)
23/4/23
Qantas B737 Melbourne – Perth forced to return due to fumes of uninown origin in the cockpit. PAN emergency declared, pilots on oxygen. (Media reported).
15/3/23
Qantas 737 experiences ‘engine overheat’ on start up at Ayers Rock. Engine fire bottle fired. Fire crews called, shutdown and precautionary disembarkation carried out. Thermal Imaging revealed hot spot in engine. (No Media Reports)
20/1/23
A Qantas B737 arrives at the gate in Brisbane. Engineer notices smoke emanating from the engine and finds zero oil quantity. Oil had been expelled on approach and engine minutes from critical damage. No emergency declared. (No media reports).
20/1/23
Qantas B737 QF430 Melbourne-Sydney turns back with insufficient thrust (unable to reach target) on one engine. (Media Reports)
19/1/23
QF144 B737 Auckland – Sydney. Engine failure. Flight continued to Sydney on one engine. PAN emergency declared. (Media Reported)
19/1/23
QF 101 Qantas B737 Sydney-Fiji forced to turn back with erroneous airspeed indicators. (Media Reported)
10/2/19
Qantas 737 Port Moresby – Brisbane diverts to Cairns with air conditioning issues. On attempted departure following rectification, engine overheat indication results in passenger tarmac evacuation (Media Reports)
A330
October 2022
Perth-Sydney
Engine severe damage. Operated at reduced thrust. White hot molten metal fragments collecting under engine cowl on shutdown.
15/12/19
Qantas A330 returns to Sydney after experiencing hydraulic fault. This caused fumes and smoke in the cabin with discomfort and distress to the passengers. Emergency evacuation on arrival. (ATSB report).
1/6/18
Qantas A330 Sydney – Bangkok. High Engine vibration. Air return to Sydney on one engine . PAN emergency declared. (ATSB report)
14/4/18
QF123 Brisbane-Auckland -Qantas A330 engine surge and high vibration. (ATSB report).
QANTAS A380
23/12/23
QF 1 Singapore London A380 forced to divert to Azerbaijan due to erroneous cargo fire indication.
QANTASLINK B717
20/1/23
QLink B717 flight QF1516 air returns to melbourne with flap retraction problem on departure (Media reports).
3/6/22
Qantaslink B717 Melbourne-Newcastle suffers engine failure and air return. PAN emergency declared. (Media Reports)
10/3/18
QantasLink B717 flight QF1799 Alice Springs-Brisbane suffers engine failure on takeoff. PAN emergency declared, air return. Media reports first officer suing Qantas group for damages due to poor maintenance.
QANTASLINK DASH-8
29/1/23
Qantaslink dash – 8 Sydney-Coffs harbor forced to air return with landing gear problem (media reports)
FOKKER 100 – Qantas ‘Network’ WA.
24/1/23Fokker 100 Perth – Kalgoorlie returns to Perth with engine trouble. PAN emergency declared.
22/1/23
737 engine overtemps with no response to thrust lever, then fails on the ramp on taxi out.
8/3/23
737 inflight shutdown due to oil filter bypass
25/4/23
Also an A330 in April this year, engine failure at 200 feet on final approach. Was signed back into service and failed again two days later on descent passing 20,000 feet. Same engine failed twice in three days,
11/5/23
Yet another QF 737 inflight shutdown has just been revealed, on descent due to fuel leak.
Also 16/5/23
A330 dumps all its hydraulic fluid on taxi out in Perth.
Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing again tonight. Ms Spence, are you or any of your executive management or your board members the beneficiaries of any benefits given from any airlines here in Australia?
Ms Spence: No. If we received any hospitality or gifts or anything like that, we would declare it. I am certainly not a beneficiary. Can you repeat that phrase again?
Senator Roberts: Beneficiary of any benefits gifted from any airlines here in Australia?
Ms Spence: Only what we would report in our gifts register.
Senator Roberts: What are they?
Ms Spence: I can’t think of anything that has been. I can say that I haven’t. Certainly if any of my executive team had, it would be reported. As far as I am aware, nothing has been reported.
Senator Roberts: Can you please take it on notice to provide a list detailing anything CASA representatives have received?
Ms Spence: Yes. Mr Marcelja: It’s on our website.
Ms Spence: It will be on our website. Yes, of course we can.
Senator Roberts: So are you going to do that, Ms Spence?
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. What is the definition of ‘subclinical ‘?
Mr Marcelja: I’m not a medical expert of that type.
Senator Roberts: Kate Manderson is not here again?
Ms Spence: The request only came to us yesterday asking us to come to Senate estimates. She was travelling overseas on official duties and so is unable to be here this evening.
Senator Roberts: Chair, I want to put on the record that we asked about two weeks before the previous Senate estimates. We asked several weeks before this Senate estimates. That is twice we have asked for Kate Manderson because of her role as a senior medical officer.
Chair: Senator Roberts, just get your office to send copies of that to the committee.
Ms Spence: Senator, while I’ve got you, one thing I probably should have mentioned, of course, is a number of the executive team would get lounge membership by the airlines. I will provide on notice who has those memberships. For example, I have a chairman’s lounge membership.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. Who is responsible, Mr Marcelja, for passenger safety with regard to pilot and medical health evaluation and monitoring in Australia?
Mr Marcelja: We conduct medical certification, as we have spoken about before.
Senator Roberts: Is there any other department, agency or organisation, either domestically or
internationally, that has legal authority, responsibility, jurisdiction, oversight or liability over Australian pilot and passenger safety?
Mr Marcelja: Senator, I would imagine that employers have obligations to pilots. When it comes to the certification of pilots and whether they are fit to fly, that is our accountability.
Senator Roberts: Apart from private company employers, no government agency, department or
organisation?
Mr Marcelja: When it comes to determining whether a pilot is fit to fly, that is our remit. Our remit is
aviation safety and the medical certification that would support aviation safety.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. It’s fair to say the buck stops with CASA?
Mr Marcelja: Within the scope that I described, yes.
Senator Roberts: Your website says that CASA uses multi-crew endorsements as a means of risk
mitigation. Their use enables pilots to continue flying despite the presence of medically significant conditions which would otherwise pose an unacceptable risk to the safety of air navigation. How many pilots with a medically significant condition are currently flying passengers under the CASA restriction which could result in a pilot being incapacitated?
Mr Marcelja: There is a requirement for most airline aircraft, as you would know, to have two pilots. That extends to safety that goes well beyond medicine. I am not sure exactly what your question is.
Senator Roberts: I want to know how many pilots cannot fly alone.
Mr Marcelja: I can take that on notice. It would be a very small number.
Senator Roberts: Can you please provide on notice how many multi-crew endorsements CASA has issued by year over the last five years?
Ms Spence: We can take on notice just to see if that data is available.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. How did you evaluate the aeromedical implications of the pilots taking the new MRNA technology injections, COVID injections, at low atmospheric conditions?
Mr Marcelja: We would not have made any evaluation of that.
Senator Roberts: No evaluation. In an aeromedical context, do you consider that you have any additional responsibility to evaluate or at least surveil a new medical technology that only has provisional approval?
Mr Marcelja: No, Senator, we don’t.
Senator Roberts: But you told me you have responsibility for aero health monitoring?
Mr Marcelja: When we evaluate a medicine, we look at the potential significance of that medicine on a pilot. We don’t test it. We rely on medical authorities to test whether medicines are suitable for use. We look at the implications for medicines in an aeromedical context. As we have spoken many times before, when it comes to vaccinations, we treat vaccinations all the same. With a vaccination that is approved for use in the population, we simply ask that pilots stand down from flying duties for 24 hours to make sure that there is no adverse reaction to it. If there are reactions beyond that, we would expect them to report it and stand down.
Senator Roberts: Are you aware that there is a COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation scheme in operation in Australia now?
Mr Marcelja: I will take your word for it.
Senator Roberts: So you weren’t aware of it?
Mr Marcelja: No.
Senator Roberts: I wonder what it is for.
Mr Marcelja: You tell me.
Senator Roberts: People have been injured or killed by these injections. You mentioned that they have to stand down for 24 hours.
Mr Marcelja: We do not have a role, as I think we have spoken about on many occasions, regarding the health implications of vaccinations on the Australian population. That is a matter for the Department of Health.
Senator Roberts: You are solely responsible for the fact that—
Mr Marcelja: We are solely responsible for determining whether there is an aviation safety risk. I can categorically tell you that it is our view there is no aviation safety risk from the vaccinations.
Ms Spence: As we have said repeatedly, we have not had a single incident involving an adverse reaction to a COVID vaccination by a pilot.
Senator Roberts: Are you aware that last year, 2022, there were more than 30,000 deaths after the vaccines were introduced for the whole of the year?
Ms Spence: That has nothing to do with us.
Senator Roberts: Let’s continue. It’s not of interest to you?
Ms Spence: To be honest— Senator Roberts: They are temporally correlated with the injections.
Ms Spence: I genuinely feel that we have nothing to add to the line of questioning.
Senator Roberts: Let’s continue, then. In February 2022, in a Zoom meeting with Virgin pilots, CASA principal medical officer Kate Manderson stated that the provisionally approved mRNA vaccines can cause myocarditis and pericarditis but that she would rather pilots got those conditions from the vaccine rather than COVID itself, which she claimed to be of a higher risk. What evidence did Kate Manderson have to substantiate these comments?
Mr Marcelja: We categorically can tell you that there is no aviation safety risk that we consider is associated with COVID vaccination.
Senator Roberts: Yet Kate Manderson, your senior medical officer, says that the vaccines can cause myocarditis and pericarditis.
Ms Spence: I expect that what she was saying is that you may. The bigger issue is that there is a greater chance of those sorts of impacts if someone actually got COVID. Again, I would definitely want to see that quote in a broader context. I think reading something like that out could be potentially quite misleading.
Senator Roberts: You are saying that without hearing it?
Ms Spence: I am saying that without seeing the whole context in which the statement was made.
Senator Roberts: We’ll get it to you.
Ms Spence: That would be great. Thanks, Senator.
Senator Roberts: I want to know what medical evidence Kate Manderson had that can substantiate her comments.
Ms Spence: Okay.
Senator Roberts: Take it on notice?
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator Roberts: I asked you on notice at SQ23-003393 to provide me with the rates of significant diseases over the previous five years for the following conditions—pericarditis and myocarditis, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, capillary leak syndrome, Guillain-Barre syndrome, any cardiac related conditions or injuries and any immune related conditions or injuries. These are recognised adverse reactions to COVID-19 injections. The injection manufacturers and the medical authorities have acknowledged this. You completely failed to answer one of them for any year. Your response to me was that your medical record system does not even capture information on these diseases in a way that can be accurately reported.
Ms Spence: That’s correct.
Senator Roberts: I am struggling to understand how you have not been misleading in your previous evidence. Over many sessions, you have maintained to me that there have been no safety signals or concerns about COVID vaccination, yet I am only now finding out that your medical record system does not even have the capacity to report on some of the most significant adverse events to COVID vaccination. How can you maintain there’s nothing in the data to indicate a concern when you don’t have the data and you’re literally flying blind?
Ms Spence: We haven’t had any incidents associated with COVID vaccination. There is no data because there are no incidents. I am sorry, Senator. I don’t know how much clearer I can be.
Senator Roberts: But you can’t measure this?
Ms Spence: We haven’t had an incident to measure it with, though, Senator.
CHAIR: I am loathe to do this. Senator Roberts, I could go to the standing orders. I can’t remember the number, but it’s known as tedious repetition. I know you have been asking these questions in and out. I do not know how anyone in CASA can explain to you any more that they don’t have any more evidence. You have the call, Senator Roberts. Senator McDonald is waiting patiently as well. We have all waited patiently all day, so keep going.
Senator Roberts: Does CASA still maintain that it is unaware of any pilot grounded with a COVID vaccine injury?
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator Roberts: I find that hard to believe given the rates of adverse events that are huge and startling. No pilots have it but every other category of citizen does. What supervision of Qantas engine trend monitoring is undertaken by CASA given that there have been a significant number of incidents over the near past?
Ms Spence: Is this about issues regarding turnarounds with Qantas aircraft?
Senator Roberts: It is air incidents. Can I table this, Chair?
Chair: Yes, of course.
Ms Spence: If what I understand is correct, you are talking about some of the media coverage on the number of turnarounds because of potential concerns with aircraft safety. We have done an analysis over a 10-year time frame saying that there has been no material increase in the number or severity of air turn-back type occurrences in 2023 to date.
Senator Roberts: Perhaps you could tell me on notice whether or not the list I have just given you from a whistleblower is normal or abnormal.
Ms Spence: Certainly I would be happy to do that. As I said, based on the analysis that we have done, there hasn’t actually been any material increase in the number or severity of air turn-backs. That is on the analysis we have done. I will take that on notice, based on the list you have just provided us.
Senator Roberts: This is a list of incidents that I have tabled that has been provided to me. Can you please verify if those have been reported or lodged with CASA? Do it on notice.
Ms Spence: Based on my quick scan, these are all ones that we are aware of. I don’t think that would change what I have just told you about no material increase in the number or severity of air turn-back type occurrences. But I will—
Senator Roberts: Perhaps you could have a look at it in detail first before making a comment.
Ms Spence: Yes.
Senator Roberts: I would like to know whether this is surprising or normal.
Ms Spence: I think that’s what I was just telling you based on—
Senator Roberts: I understand. I would like to know once you’ve had a look at it, not before you’ve had a look at it. I would be surprised if it’s normal. Thank you, Chair.
Pilots are restricted from flight 24 hours after any vaccine. I want to know if there has been any occasions where an air safety incident has been reported connected to a vaccine adverse event.
Terrific, thank you. Senator Roberts has some questions.
[Roberts] Thank you, Chair. Thank you for appearing here tonight. For the period, 1st of July, 2020, to the current date, could you please provide on notice a report detailing all aviation safety incidents, where COVID and or a COVID vaccination is mentioned as a contributing factor?
We would have to take that on notice, senator.
[Roberts] Of course. Yeah. Secondly, are there practises in place to ensure that air crew do not fly immediately after a COVID vaccination or booster? And if so, what are they, and why were they determined to be necessary?
Senator, I’m not aware of any restrictions.
[Man] Senator Andrea is much the acting executive. Take that off. Lot easier. Andrea’s, much the acting executive manager for the stakeholder engagement division and aviation medicine sits within that portfolio. The way we treat vaccination for COVID is the same as any other vaccination. So it’s got a 24 hour exclusion period after you vaccinated.
[Roberts] Thank you. Thirdly, we’re informed that there was an incident where the crew were informed by flight crew, where there was an incident where the crew of a commercial aircraft turned off fuel to both engines during flight. We’re informed that a potential factor in this incident was COVID vaccination. You know, brain fog that sometimes comes. Please provide, can you please provide full details of any incident resembling this description and provide full details of the investigation report and recommendations on notice.
And that one might actually be better directed at the Australian transport safety bureau as well, but we’ll see what we can find at our end as well.
[Roberts] Have there been any similar incidents where the reported cause was a TIA, or a transient ischemic attack, a minor stroke?
Senator, we haven’t had any incidents reported to us of that nature at all, in relation to COVID vaccination. We’ll check on notice but to my knowledge, we’ve had no incidents reported to us.
[Roberts] How long after having had a COVID 19 or a COVID 19 vaccine are air crew allowed to pilot a commercial aircraft? I’d take it 24 hours after vaccine, what about after COVID?
So after COVID, it’s treated in the same way as any illnesses. So it’s up to the pilot to assess whether they’re impaired or not. And if the impairment goes for more than seven days then they’re required to see a medical examiner to clear them back to line and that’s that’s standard for any kind of illness.
[Roberts] Thank you, I appreciate your direct answers. That’s it, Chair.
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