Complacency is, I believe, another word for the normalisation of deviance and no, it is not something that comes in a plain-brown wrapper. It is the insidious tendency to shave safety standards to the point where a crash becomes inevitable. The phrase was coined by a researcher looking at the Challenger shuttle disaster, Diane Vaughan who was also involved in the Columbia shuttle investigation. In both cases she identified instances of where NASA had accepted dangerous practices (sticking O-rings on the booster rockets & ceramic heat tile damage) as they hadn't caused any issue on earlier flights.
Australia does have a good aviation record. Whether it would be as good if we had some of the traffic and weather problems experienced in other countries is arguable but all of our legislation is written in blood so it cannot be argued that it is our regulator that is keeping us safe. If safety was dependent of the regulator I would never travel by air again after having had to deal with them.
The reality is that airlines have realised that crashes are enormously expensive both in dollar and reputation terms; the vast majority of pilots do not want to die; and engineers don't like the thought of their work being the cause of a crash. The task is for managers to realise that cutting training or maintenance is short road to hell (not forgetting that under the present regulations they can be held liable for breaches); for pilots to put their egos behind them and realise that you are never too old to learn and for engineers to always remember maintenance procedures are there for a reason.