Again missing the point earlier that Australia had reduced it's GA accident rate from 1.6 in 1990 to about 0.9 in 2000. What changed after that to make it jump back up again? It's not ageing aircraft, the average fleet age is younger now than in 1999, as that was pre all the influx of new trainers and caravans etc.. and contrary to the witch hunt CASA is on, airframe failure due age is not high on the list of reasons pilots crash. The 90s were also pre the mass introduction of GPS, so no fancy navigation, moving map displays, ACAS for GA, etc... All clocks, maps and DR. In the 90s large GA airports like Moorabbin were still thriving, so large concentrations of GA aircraft, so it's not that either. It was also pre-ADSB, so virtually no radar coverage outside of the main cities. Lots of GA airplanes plying the skies around the country and no huge rate of mid airs either, a lot more country airstrips because CASA had not deemed they need some sort of oversight, manager and law suits coming up because some idiot crashed there, claiming the grass was not inline with some MOS somewhere.
Hmm what changed in the early 2000s? Oh that's right we went to a fancy new system that focuses on competency rather than the age old system of 'is that pilot safe'. We also made it ten times harder for CFI/CP to get involved in the practical operation of the flying school due to them being inundated with regulations, procedures and dealing with CASA. The regulated difficulty in running a decent flying school with the 1000s of pages of paperwork required to prove somebody competent has removed the simplicity of the instructors task of just teaching and assessing somebody 'safe' and moving on. Add to the list an unworkable and contradictory rule set, that requires a 'MOS' to interpret the convoluted rules, which the 'MOS' in itself is as convoluted and unintelligible. Now if I want to look something up quickly I look in the AIP, where a simple answer used to be, it now says refer MOS xxxx, and I have to dig through that, and half way through give up and just do what I think is right...
The only thing that has really changed is the regulatory environment and procedures. CASA is directly responsible for the current issues in GA in Australia, as well as many other problems in Aviation at all levels. Safety has gone backwards since 2000.
What is really sad is that for all the new aircraft, ADSB coverage and new fancy navigation and collision avoidance technology, we have gone backwards since it was all introduced.