Thanks guys,
I think 212man is the closest to the mark. The particular section of the proposed rule happens to be the very first paragraph before any other conditions are mentioned, it states that the 'take off alternate' must be withing 1 hour of the departure airport, no ifs or buts.
I assume the idea is that they don't want you wondering around the sky for hours with a major emergency directly after take off, like an engine fire that has been put out by the extinguishers, this I understand and being in the drivers seat at that particular moment dosn't appeal to me either -BUT- For practical purposes, having to hold an alternate that is an hour away basically results in us having to stay on the ground on the many nights or days that we would otherwise be flying. The sort of emergency that I assume they wrote the rule for is extremely remote and (to me anyway) the rule seems to be an overkill. For operators to have to get a dispensation for an alternate that is further away than 60 minutes seems to defeat the purpose. In other words almost every IFR operator here would have to have a dispensation.
The proposed rule does refer to varying types of conditions a little later on, like isolated heliports needing a PNR calculation as stated above in Stopachopa's reply etc etc, which all seem reasonable - its just the one hour bit that gets us.
The reason for the post is realy to get an idea if it is as restricting for JAR OP pilots as it would be for us. And from 212man's response it seems that it may well be. The proposed changes are still in the draft phase and we are invited to respond to the discussion paper. Hence the question. If we come back with enough evidence that Australian conditions would not warant the introduction of this rule then obviously they are hard pressed to implement it.
Thanks again, this is one of the few 'soap boxes' that I have had need to stand on.
cheers.