I've been overseas and missed most of this but I'd make these points:
1. The ATSB seems to be taking 2 years plus for any report of real seriousness or contention. There are currently 87 outstanding reports going back to June 2011. Now that K. Rudd's new mate "Albo" has taken on the NBN as well as retaining transport, its hard to see any of the issues raised in the senate hearings getting any attention. Don't expect anything out of the ATSB anytime soon, and certainly not before we have a new government.
2. Unlike Pelair and others, one would expect the airlines involved to be able to afford serious lawyers. The usual ATSB blame it on the pilot tactic won't work.
3. TAF's at regional airports (in my experience) have become dramatically worse in the last 3-5 years. And the early morning ones are worst. I frequently see wholesale changes to overnight forecasts made at about 9am. Many of our regional TAF's are now nearly worthless.
4. If we had US type costs for ILS installation & maintenance of ILS, there would be one at Mildura. I spent some time at a the recent Victorian Govt. Super Trade Mission with some senior guys from Avalon airport and they ran through the ASA charges for the ILS maintenance. The ASA charges are breathtaking. We have a mantra that our private industries (ie the car industry) is internationally competitive. Its time we turned our attention to our government bodies. Why shouldn't ASA be internationally competitive?
There is a lot of discussion here about fuel reserves, but that is only so the flights could get to a capital city airport. The question that we are missing is " How can Australia justify not having an ILS equipped runway with full radar & met facilities between Brisbane & Adelaide?" That's 1,000 nm.
Lets also not forget that we had 2 major airline jets manoeuvring around an airport with no radar coverage.
There is about $6.5m of regional development funds being spent on renovating (not extending, or rebuilding - renovating) the Mildura terminal. A fraction of that money would give Mildura an ILS. Clearly the government cares more about comfortable departure lounges than air safety.
The debate about fuel & mayday calls are secondary. Why can we not provide better quality alternate airports?