High percent of Australia being Military/Restricted Airspace????
I hope you're joking. If you read your NOTAM's the majority of this airspace is deactivated for all but a few weeks each year and makes up a very small percentage of Australian Territory.
As long as the boys in their CTAFS are ok, and can wander wherever they like, then thats all that matters Brian, isn't it. Safety of the travelling public isn't nearly as important as your weekend jollys.
The reason the Unions are against this change is because it is less safe than the current preocedures. Full stop. Nothing to do with being resistant to change. Controllers especially have been involved in constant change for the last 8 years, New ATC system, No flight service, New name, RVSM implementation, DTI implementation, Centre Consolidation, Countless management restructures, Overstaffing resulting in redundancys, closely followed by Shortstaffing resulting in wild recruiting.
One thing that the Controllers union is not afraid of is change, what they are afraid of is there members will have to sit idly by and watch one of their RPT aircraft disappear from their screen cos it hit the non-squawking, not on control frequency, non-broadcasting VFR sitting just below the cloud. But as I said see and avoid is ok for you so it should be ok for everyone else, even the guys descending 4,000 ft a minute through cloud.