Defenestrator, jarjar & Dog One,
Unfortunately you are incorrect with what you may think the regs are saying. CAR 5.40 is very clear and consistent with ICAO and international practices. ICUS can and is/has been extensively used for many years (mainly by the majors but is just as applicable to the regional’s) to allow low time pilots and cadets accumulate the hours necessary to acquire an ATPL and to eventually get a command. Points that must be emphasised are that these hours can be accumulated outside a training environment. You don’t have to have a training captain in the left seat and all it takes is a blanket statement in the company’s ops manual that allows ICUS to be logged by the FO when he is PF.
I think the reality of the situation is that you haven’t come across this before in your career and are questioning those that say it is legal. For someone that has worked with this reality for many years, it is legal and many operators i.e. (Qantas) use it to employ low time pilots/cadets into the right seat with an eventual goal of seeing them promoted into the left seat. And for the record QF don’t have a dispensation to allow Cadets to log ICUS. It is all done under CAR 5.40.
Having said all that if an operator has something in their ops manual that is more restrictive than the CAR’s and the CAO’s then the operator must comply with what is in their ops manual. If down the road the operator needs to remove this they can as long as it is accepted by CASA and isn’t less stringent than the regs.