0600 hours: Commonwealth Headquarters, Canberra
Has your day started?
For some of Australia’s regulatory practitioners they are already hard at work. There might be a misconception that all regulators work in an office from 9am to 5pm. This is true for some regulatory roles, but definitely not for others.
According to the 2021 APS Employment Data, there are approximately 15,000 APS employees working in compliance and regulatory roles. These employees are performing important and diverse work across a range of regulators within the APS.
The core purpose of a regulator is to prevent harm. There is legislation and other controls put in place to assist with this, but depending on what type of harm is being prevented, there are a wide variety of regulatory employees working at all hours, in variety of locations to ensure Australians’ safety.
Airspace Protection and Airport Safeguarding
Eamon Lindsay works in the Airspace Protection and Airport Safeguarding Branch within the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts. His team looks after the regulation of structures allowing for the safe and efficient operation of aircraft from federally-leased airports.
A typical day for Eamon sees applications coming in from airports, building developers and crane operators who wish to erect buildings and cranes within the vicinity of federally-leased airports. These may seem like ordinary requests to most of us, but Eamon knows there are important international civil aviation frameworks and procedures that need to be adhered to regarding communication with, and navigation to and from any airport space. He knows an aircraft cannot easily avoid obstacles at and around airports. He knows that unapproved structures going up around these airport spaces will impact the communication between the planes and airport traffic control. He knows unapproved structures may impact a planes ability to navigate safely. Knowing all of this - he ensures applications are appropriately assessed, plans adjusted if need be and formally approved before any building commences.
Eamon enjoys the specific nature of his regulatory work, the opportunity to work with a variety of stakeholders and visiting different airports.
Below is a picture of Eamon completing an airside perimeter tour of Adelaide Airport.
Next time you fly on a plane, remember the important work carried out by Eamon and his team. When your plane takes off and lands – they have done the hard work to ensure it will have a safe passage into and out of our airports.