I would just like to point out that as much as Mr. Wright's piece is offensive garbage, it is not "reporting". It is an editorial opinion piece, and should be treated as such. The Australian article is a more balanced "report".
It would be of more use to expose why Wright is being given inches to expound his opinions, as well as show his opinions up to be ignorant, political, drivel.
Traffic traffic: I think there is one extremely good reason why the AsA experiment in generic ratings cannot work. They decrease efficiency for the customer, whose operating costs far exceed those of the service providers', in order to make a small gain for the provider. Working toward inefficiency will never work. That is not to say that AsA couldn't get it all to work eventually, but I think they are only getting away with even trying because their customers dont understand ATC or the fact that AsA is cost shifting onto them.
As an example; if AsA don't provide a service in an airspace, and airlines divert around it, look at the cost involved. I recently read where a Cathay flight had 34 mins added to the flight time due TIBA diversion. That would cost (in fuel alone) in the order of $5000. Im sure that wasnt the only flight inconvenienced. So a single TIBA could cost tens of thousands of dollars (without looking at crew costs, engine running hours, onward delay and schedule impact etc. etc.). The cost to AsA? NOTHING. If the financial costs were sheeted home to AsA, they might be more interested in NEVER allowing TIBA. In my view, this is the big philosphical problem with allowing a monopoly service provider to be run as a business. It's interests arent aligned with either it's customer's, or even the national interest.