I attended the Airservices briefing on "SFIS" on Tues the 15th, it is good to see them taking back airspace management from CASA. (I think they are as frustrated CASA OAR as the rest of us)
The impression I formed was that CASA had abrogated airspace responsibility for anything other than the top-down airspace reviews described in the Airspace legislation. Even then, as per Avalon, the OAR bosses want Airservices to come up with suggestions for change which OAR can then rubber-stamp. Funnily enough, that is probably better than the alternative which is CASA dreaming up more nonsense like CA/GRS!
I offered my qualified support at the briefing for a service that will be clearly superior to CA/GRS although hamstrung by some peculiar protocols. I won't go into details here but this service needs to become a real ATS that replaces the so-called "area" frequency where, as well as traffic information, clearances, SSR codes, etc. can be obtained. I believe that common sense will eventually prevail as pilots and controllers get used to the new service. There is also a need to standardise these Class G services. The procedures at Port Hedland AFIS, Ayers Rock CA/GRS, and these new services need to be the same. If Ayers Rock Radio, a CA/GRS, cannot be standardised then it needs to be replaced with a genuine "information" service linked to the ATS, which it currently is not.
This raises the most obvious anomoly voiced at the briefing, which was the statement from Airservices that CASA had forbidden them to use the ICAO recognised term Aerodrome Flight Information Service (AFIS). The service will be on the allocated CTAF and use the aerodrome identifier as a callsign, followed by "Information". So what is it other than a remotely provided AFIS? This apparently is the reason for the invention of Surveillance FIS, a term not recognised by ICAO and probably requiring yet another "difference" to be filed. This is apparently another intervention by CASA who simply do not have the expertise to involve themselves in such decisions. (This is not intended to be a comment on individual members of OAR who are hard-working individuals with many and diverse skills). It is CASA management and processes that produce such weird interpretations.