Your predilection with nailing Sunfish on anything he says is blocking your critical thinking.
Simply because Sunfish has a habit of hijacking threads away from operational discussions into non-operational areas because he wants everyone to think he is the smartest person in the room. I'm not a fan of Dick Smith either but the thread title was about the number of fatalities in 9 weeks which has sweet FA to do with the demise of Ansett. I could rant on at length about the issues that led to the demise of Ansett but that would just be following the white rabbit down his useless rabbit hole.
Back to the thread topic, 4 of those fatalities were a result of the one accident and I am assuming DS is including the Herc accident which was 3 fatalities in a single accident so that leaves 2. If I recall correctly they were a result of a VFR into IFR accident which is entirely preventable and a recurring problem. The Herc accident was the result of high risk operations where the margins of safety are reduced during an intense bushfire season. The Mangalore accident seems to be more of a case of when rather than if given the airspace and its use for navaid training. So is the whole system failing or is it a statistical aberration? Is it possible to get the GA accident rate to zero? I don't think it is.