And now for my second bite at the cherry. Thanks Max 1. And others have also confirmed my recollections. One commented that 'we did not get the pick of the bunch' when referring to some of the pilots who arrived to 'help out'. It would be interesting to review the incident reports from that period. Monty's claim that ATC set up crews for incidents is appalling. ATCs do not do that , nor did they need to since some of the crews demonstrated that they were perfectly capable of doing that for themselves. And there were only some which offended. Perhaps the change from the high density traffic environment and unfriendly weather of Europe created a relaxed attitude and a failure to maintain standards. On the other hand perhaps we did not get the pick of the bunch. Whatever the reason there was no excuse for failing to maintain assigned headings, helping ones self to preferred taxiway routings, and entering or crossing active runways without a clearance. It's difficult to see how ATC could possibly set a pilot up for that type of violation. There seems to be a concensus (from my small sample) that some crews did not display the level of professionalism which Australian ATCs were accustomed, and that there was no Union pressure whatsoever on the way ATCs at the time performed there normal duties.
