I commend CASA for taking the initiative to increase safety in GAAP airports. My greatest concern however is how the new rules against runway incursion are going to work in practice. It's all very well at Bankstown and other GAAPs where they have parallel runways (correct me if I am wrong) but Moorabbin is facing a real challenge.
Quite often on a full stop landing pilots use the cris-crossing non-active runways for vacating the active runway at MB eg. when landing on 17L, runoff to 22, when landing on 35R, runoff to 31L or 31R, or when landing on 13/31, runoff to a combination of 04/22 and crossing 17L/R. If the pilot is still on TWR frequency, is TWR expected to such taxi clearances ? Normally such clearances are given by GRD after you have vacated the active runway - now you're already on another runway before you can contact GRD (!) The problem is if you missed the exit say to a non-active runway, you may have to roll a long way to the next available taxiway or even right through to the end before vacating, and given TWR's reluctance to clear the one behind from landing or touch n' go until you have vacated, are we going to witness a lot of go-arounds ? Or should we make every full stop landing a short field and vacate ASAP knowing that some else is following close behind ?
Maybe this problem is peculiar to MB. My suggestion is (now the Tiger Moth enthusiasts are going to shoot me down in flames) to consider de-commissioning 04/22, otherwise there will be a lot of runway incursions every day, as 04/22 is hardly used anyway.
I agree that no amount of regulation is going to prevent accidents caused by the individual pilot who departs (for one reason or another) from the rules. Yes we need better regulation and supervision but the parameters drawn up by CASA does not necessary work at every GAAP aerodrome (not without substantial local modification and/or sacrifice). With limitations on the number of aircraft in the circuit, I dare not even start to think how other aircraft will be sequenced at VFR entry points as that seems to me to be the real reason for a substantial proportion of accidents.