"As they need to cover their arses legally, and I don't think anyone can seriously argue otherwise, the lawyers must get involved and write loophole-closing documentation. My main point was that, along with that stuff, they should make good clear accompanying guides to help non-lawyers make sense of it all much easier."
Aotw,
To a certain point I agree with your hypothesis, but I always imagined the "regulations" were promulgated for the purpose of maintaining and improving safety, therefore, it follows, that those that are required to comply with them should understand what they mean.
Where most of the problems lie, I believe, is that there is no standardization within the regulator as to what the the correct interpretation is, witnessed by the various interpretations of various AWI's and FOI's. Think of the Norfolk ditching and the fact that a poll of FOI's could not agree whether an alternate was legally required or not. There is ample examples of compliance on one side of the country may not necessarily be compliant on the other.
These uncertainties I believe are what causes so much angst within industry and can lead to unfair advantage given to one AOC holder who is required to do something and another who may not.
Your idea of guides has merit, but other regulators manage to produce plain language regulations that don't require a high court judge to interpret them, why is Australia so different?
The down side I see is that lawyers would have to be involved in producing these "guide books" because they are the only ones who understand the reg's. I could see another half a billion $$$ up in smoke and probably another twenty years to produce them so why not write the reg's in plain language to start with.
Last edited by thorn bird; 14th Aug 2013 at 07:08.