Folks,
Why don't you look up the Australian standards for the national drivers license medical standards for other than private motor cars.
If you do, it will give you NO COMFORT compared to the CASA Class 2 medical standards.
The "new" US FAA standards mirror (more rather than less) what we have done in Australia for around 30 years for AUF/RAOz, the PRIVATE drivers medical standard.
What CASA is "proposing" is the reform you announce which sounds good to the unknowing and uncritical, don't "confuse 'em with facts".
Just PR for the proles and politicians. The reform that is not reform.
It is obvious CASA has no wish to reform the Class 2, or mirror their experience of so many years, that the AUF/RAOz (and for many other recreational flyers) presents NO UNACCEPTABLE RISK, compared to the Class 2, and should be extended to ALL private operations.
Note: To all private operations, not limited by various other factors (gross weight etc) that have NO VALID RISK MANAGEMENT justification.
Of course, this is just as true of the FAA limitations, far more flexible than proposed by CASA, but still without risk management justification, ie: they are arbitrary.
Put simply, the medical condition/class of medical certificate held by a pilot is a negligible factor in aircraft accident and incident statistics.
It never has been.
Do not forget, aviation medical standards have NEVER been based on the assessed minimum standards necessary to fly an aeroplane, but based on historic military selection standards designed to exclude all but around 5% of the fittest, and squeezing "concessions" over the 60 years or so I have been flying, to recognise the real world of civil flying has been pitiful, particularly difficult because so many "Department/Authority " doctors were ex-military themselves.
Tootle pip!!