You only need to cherry pick some of the Senate Hansard for the Rural Affairs and Transport Committee's recent inquirys (current and completed) to signs of a SMS being abused/embraced.
This from a current inquiry (no guesses to which one):
Mr Kelly: We have raised it through the reporting system called OSCAR. For five years we have reported fatigue as an issue with the Bali returns. The message that we received from the company was 'Just keep the OSCARs coming.'
Ms Neeteson-Lemkes: If I may elaborate on the OSCAR system within J******. You write an OSCAR, whether you submit it electronically or hand write it, and you send it off to the department. What you receive is a generated or an automated email, saying, 'Thank you very much for your OSCAR.' It ends there; there is no action. We have been waiting for action at domestic for about 3½ years now. OSCARS are unanswered and they remain unanswered.
Whether these statements/facts were true or not is irrelevant. What is true is the perception of the employees on how ineffective the reporting system is.
I also know of crew that have been given letters of warning (first black letter) for submitting company incident reports. An example was where a FO tried to start an APU with the engine bung in, the FO submitted an incident report and was subsequently reprimanded and sent a 'black letter'. There was no serious damage done to the APU and the FO was told by the engineers: " Don't worry about it, it happens all the time!".
This attitude can only instil a culture of non-reporting within an organisation.
Progressive quite rightly points out:
SMS is not something new and fancy it has been operating in the mining, rail shipping and nuclear power industries for years.
However SMS may have been around for "donkeys years", but a SMS is only as good as the management controlling and promoting it.