i would prefer to defend the affirmative position as defending the negative requires saying that as the AIP has no head of power, it therefore also must have no use.
You make the quite common and reasonable mistake of believing “the AIP” has a head of power.
The AIP is, in fact, a compendium of lots of disparate stuff, from aerodrome data to immigration and customs entry requirements to radio terminology and so on. Whether a purported requirement in AIP is a
legal requirement depends on whether that individual requirement is supported by a specific law or exercise of a specific statutory power. I gave the example, in a different thread, of purported restrictions published in ERSA (part of the AIP) on the use of airspace around Mildura. The purported restrictions had no basis in law and were therefore removed.
To put this the other way around: Just because something is published as a “requirement” in AIP does not make it so.
I will provide an example.
174A Equipment of aircraft for V.F.R. flight ...
(1)CASA may issue instructions specifying:
(a) the radiocommunication systems; or
(b) the radio navigation systems; or
(c) the secondary surveillance radar transponder equipment;
that must be carried on, or installed in, an aircraft before it undertakes a V.F.R. flight.
[The usual criminal offence.]
(1B)If an instruction under subregulation (1) is not issued in the form of a Civil Aviation Order, the instruction does not bind a person until it has been:
(a) served on the person; or
(b) published in NOTAMS or AIP.
Note that the legal requirement to carry NAVCOM and SSR equipment on VFR flights depends on the valid exercise by CASA of the specific power to issue instructions specifying that equipment, which power is contained in CAR 174A(1). The VFR equipment requirements specified in AIP either reflect or publish those requirements, or are fluff.
To put this another way, if someone in Airservices had a ‘bright idea’ that VFR aircraft should all be equipped with signal flares and managed to get that ‘requirement’ published in AIP, the outcome would
not be a legal obligation to carry signal flares on VFR aircraft. That’s because Airservices is not CASA. It would just be another Mildura ‘bright idea’ with no legal basis.
If a person operates a VFR aircraft without the equipment as instructed by CASA under CAR 174A(1) and published in AIP, that’s an offence against CAR 174A(1), not an offence ‘against the AIP’.
With that background, could you identify the provision of the law that makes it an offence not to plan on landing, or failing to land, at least 10 minutes before the end of civil daylight if flying to day VFR rules?
As you’ve cited section 20A of the Civil Aviation Act, could you identify the recklessness in deliberately planning to land, and in fact landing, 5 minutes before the end of civil daylight?
I should note that I plan to land at least 20 minutes before the end of civil daylight at my destination, and in the last few decades have busted that margin - but still in civil daylight - only once. I’m only commenting as I am allergic to folklore as well as the false legal=safe illegal=unsafe dichotomy that infects much of the shallow gene pool of Australian aviation.