4.6 Except when necessary for take-off or landing, or except by permission from the competent authority, a VFR flight shall not be flown:
a) over the congested areas of cities, towns or settlements or over an open-air assembly of persons at a height less than 300 m (1 000 ft) above the highest obstacle within a radius of 600 m from the aircraft;
b) elsewhere than as specified in 4.6 a), at a height less than 150 m (500 ft) above the ground or water.
These are the same rules as Australia follows and should not hurt anyone who is flying in the spirit of the regs. It would be hard to ping anyone for flying 500ft AGL vs Above obstacles vs separation as hard to prove you flew exactly over a 200ft mast or building. Unless you are blatting along at 100ft over a town, they have no hope of prosecuting you. It would be very hard to ping you on the 600m radius thing as well (Sir, in my opinion I was more than 600m from the built up area).
The 1500ft thing for IFR is, in Australia anyway, based on the fact the lowest LSALT is 1500ft, even over the sea, and IFR aircraft cannot transit below LSALT. The descents to rigs etc would surely be authorised by the CAA under approval of the companies Ops Manual, so when they sign off on the OM, they sign off on the IFR let down.
IMHO anyway, nothing here to get upset about.
