That's what I was getting at with earlier comments, that the IMC was probably entered right before impact, meaning any fancy equipment would not have done much.
As for the IFR rating debate, it's not an Australian thing, the US has a huge rate of VFR into IMC accidents. Including many of the glass cockpit types. It really is an education thing and promoting that your airplane will somehow save you from disorientation accidents is misleading and many will push further into bad conditions thinking that. A lot of VFR pilots are VFR because the don't want to bother with the hassel of IFR flight and the need to keep current. Cirrus chutes have proven useful in situations where you have things under control, but you realise a normal recovery might not be possible. By the time a VFR pilot is spiraling out of control the chute and autopilot are the last things on their mind. Without the discipline IFR training provides pilots wont have the thought to rely on the autos, so unless the aircraft have automated recovery without pilot consent then it wont matter much. How many times do you see drivers over-react and slam down the accelerator instead of brake and make things worse in a panick, these are the same people flying private aircraft. Do you really think complicated systems and recoveries are better than stringent, stay out of cloud messages.