Bill,
SL is not a complex concept, and it is applied to many areas of the law. I fear, and I say (type?) this with the greatest respect, that Creamy was spot on when Creamy stated that you may not understand what SL is. It is quite simple - there is no need for the prosecution to prove intent on the part of the accused, and the accused has a defence of having held, at the relevant time, an honest and reasonable mistake of fact. Yes, we lawyers can spend a lot of time debating these issues but that basic explanation probably is sufficent for the purposes of this debate and forum.
In any event, why is aviation such a holy cow? Do you object to SL applying to most motor vehicle traffic law? I would bet you spend more time driving a car than flying an aircraft, and the Police Services and roads authorities have vastly more resources than CASA could ever hope to have.
Lets look at two very similar situations, and I am not going to look up the CARs or traffic regs - I will make up two factual situtations. Assume under the CARs it is an offence to fly at more than 250kts in Class G airspace. Assume under the Road Transport legislation it is an offence to drive at more than 40 kph in a school zone. I drive in excess of 40kph in the school zone near my home and I then fly in excess of 250 kts in the Class G airspace near my home airport. In both cases my breaches were the result of oversight (although more coreectly sloppy flying/driving), there was no outside influence that caused my excess speed, and my excess speeds did not have an adverse impact on anyone. Why, in those situations, should the driving offence be SL but not the fliying offence?
Granted, there may be argument that a particular offence that is, was or is proposed to be an SL offence should not be, but I don't see how it can be said that SL is, of itself, evil.