Back on topic...
For those who suggest “there is no statistical significance in [a] single event that contributes such a large fraction of the sample”, “events like these are stochastic until proven otherwise” and it’s not “appropriate to extrapolate accident stats like that”, I agree. There is that trite saying about lies, damn lies and statistics.
But if you’re going to criticise Dick for implying that there is some causal connection between the specific spate of recent fatalities and ‘something else’ - I note he only asked a question about what that ‘something else’ might be - you should be criticising the others that do precisely the same. For example, look at what CASA and ATSB did to justify the Community Service Flight kneejerk. Wrap your brain around this circular logic:
Our objective here is not to specifically address what caused those two accidents; it’s to address what kinds of things can cause incidents and accidents of this kind. We’re being prospective. If we were to wait for sufficiently robust data to support an evidence based decision for every individual decision we took in this space, we would have to wait for a dozen or more accidents to occur.
Let us not entertain the possibility that waiting for “sufficiently robust data” might show that “being prospective” was really just “a kneejerk”. And strange that they don’t apply the same logic to HCRPT operations in and out of aerodromes in G. Apparently we’re going to wait for the collision that kills a a 737 full of fare paying pax before acting.
It seems to me that about the only valid conclusion that can be drawn about the accident and incident rate in Australia is that a few decades and a few hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars lazily sunk into the regulatory reform program have had little causally positive consequence for the accident and incident rate. The program has produced a few millionaires, so I suppose that’s a kind of silver lining.
It seems to me that some people involved in aviation spend a lot of time and money bringing about changes that have, on balance, been generally beneficial for aviation. It seems to me that other people involved in aviation spend a lot of time and money producing little that is beneficial for aviation.