The big plunge! Hi everyone. Long time reader, first time poster.
Firstly I'd like to say thanks again to Chris for organising the opportunity for the opposing camps to meet face-to-face, and secondly for reporting back to the masses on what happened at the meeting. You made a commitment, both financial and temporal, and followed through, despite the prospect of little of formal note being achieved at the meeting apart from spleen-venting!
If I may, I'd like to correct a couple of points that somehow may have been misinterpreted on the day, or miscommunicated in the generally comprehensive summary you have made above. For the benefit of everyone else, I preface this by saying that I am not speaking for or on behalf of Airservices or even other controllers - indeed I may draw some ire! - the following are my thoughts and in various places a few of my colleagues (is 5% of a workforce a statistically valid sample?!).
As far as VFR flight following is concerned, a couple of observations. On the day of the meeting I believe that all of us were under the impression that a single, snapshot service on position, traffic or navigation assistance was available to VFR aircraft OCTA. Indeed this was the case until recently. I have since refamiliarised myself with the relevant portion of the Manual of Air Traffic Services (MATS), and as it turns out RIS or Radar Information Service (which is similar to the old-style flight following and includes an alerting service) is available to VFR aircraft under radar coverage on an ongoing basis, though it is 'workload permitting' and at the complete discretion of the controller.
You have portrayed the expression 'workload permitting' as somehow offensive as it implies laziness or some other negative virtue. I don't believe this is the case. Controllers can either perform the task or they can't, and they don't generally think of themselves as lazy or incompetent if at that particular moment they can't. We like to think of ourselves as professional (no matter what our bosses call us!) and try to behave as such. I think that the major points I was trying to get across are that:
1) Whether controller workload is too high to provide a service or not is not something that a pilot can generally pass judgement on. It has been covered ad nauseum elsewhere and I don't wish to go over old ground, but a quiet frequency does not necessarily equate to low workload. The best way to understand this concept is to visit an ATC unit and watch what they do - Chris has done precisely this and in a few short minutes gained a fairly clear understanding of many of the hurdles, both regulatory and procedural that we have to abide by.
2) There are different experience and skill levels amongst controllers and what takes one out of their comfort zone may well be within the reach of another. The best way I can describe this to our pilot bretheren is that you probably all know pilots who are too conservative, and others who are too brash. Well, from day one in the ATC college, we are taught to be conservative, to the point where flair or over-confidence can actually be punished with failure. It was continuously reinforced to me all those years ago that an extra mile or two on track is far preferable than pushing them too tight and having a breakdown in separation or worse (of course we'd then get hammered if we didn't get everyone to destination on time as well, but that's another story!). Some pilots are accommodating and push a little closer to the edges of the envelope, some like to play it safe and others are more difficult or downright obstreporous - ATCs are the same. Anyway, like in many parts of life, the smart ones know their limits and never get in an overload situation. While you may think you can take on one more aeroplane/task and probably be okay, if it is not imperative you could choose not to and certainly be okay. To a pilot, this can often lead to problems with conformity (i.e. "But I got a clearance/climb/RIS there yesterday! Why not today?"). I'm afraid that's just the nature of the beast.
3) Finally, in an age of increasing industry litigation where both pilots and controllers have been jailed (or worse!), often because they were the final link in an error chain, many controllers are distrustful of the phrase 'workload permitting' as it represents a veritable minefield in a legal sense should anything go wrong, particularly if that misadventure should befall a paying customer. Another phrase which generates these cold sweats is 'duty of care' which we discussed on the day.
Pilot responsibility to 'see and avoid' in all classes of airspace is clearly defined in all Australian documents, Chris, and I'm not quite sure how you got the impression that I thought otherwise.
As far as rollback was concerned, my intention was to show that many ATCs were not in favour of the coming rollback for two main reasons. One was the issue of constant change which you mentioned. I am personally offended every time some moron asserts that Airservices, or CivilAir or ATCs in general are change-resistant. I cannot think of a single industry sector which has undergone more radical and persistent change over the last decade than Australian air traffic control.
Secondly, in many areas of Australia (including around my patch), the rollback will cement and in some instances actually worsen the negative aspects of the project i.e. the increased airspace complexity, ICAO non-compliance, and multifarious procedures which have been introduced to date. And that's before we even touch what would appear to be an incredible financial waste for very little if any actual benefit (I'm still waiting for Bill, or anyone else for that matter, to post the figures he promised about savings his company has made since NAS began). I don't think I'm alone in the belief that airspace (and aviation in general) benefits from simplicity, not layer upon layer of complex regulation or procedural intricacy.
Though it appears at first to be a monumental task, I believe that we would all be best served by revisiting First Principles (though utilsing the benefit of hindsight on already solved problems, so I guess it's actually Second Principles!) and redesigning the entire system from the ground up, industry consultation and all. But boy would you have to have big cojones to task someone with that job!!! Not to mention doing it!!!