aroa - where do you draw the line between using a private aircraft for business and having a business based on using an aircraft? What is the difference between one guy being a fly and fix electrician and an entire company being fly and fix electricians?
If you decide one guy, flying one plane is ok, next thing you have an operator who says "no mate, we are not a flying company. I just happen to have 12 electricians with PPLs and some aircraft they use. Why should I have to maintain fatigue and maintenance programs or operations manuals, its all private operations."
That fact is once money is involved, common sense starts to get eroded and corners get cut to make a buck. The guy who flew to a few jobs to get by in the wet season soon starts flying tired to make those extra jobs he lined up or stretching out the next service to save some cash. Next thing you have some C172 speared in somewhere and people asking how he was allowed to operate like that and why didn't CASA do anything about it?
I am not saying the current state of play is right. I agree being able to use a PPL to transport yourself and some tools to job should be a reasonable thing to do. But there has to be oversight when money is involved and the only way to do that properly is regulation and regulatory definition of what constitutes commercial flying. Maybe that definition needs to be able to separate occasional aircraft use in business from an ongoing commercial operation, but I think you need to be careful how you do that as someone will always use the loopholes.