trueline nails it
Chronic short staffing throughout the organisation evaporated the traditional internal sources of transfer into SYD TMA.
Middle management rewarded for reducing core staff below minimum requirements and filling on (ironically cheaper) overtime.
Years of warnings unheeded.
Inexplicable inability to recruit and train sufficient backfill.
Abysmal attempts at overseas recruitment direct to SYD TMA producing < 20% of required graduates.
It's only going to get worse chaps and chapettes. The few remaining controllers on their days off are generally too disenfranchised to bother covering roster shortfalls thanks to post-EBA reprisals from Canberra.