Ok Andu, there's your answer, a lowering of recruitment and training standards plus controllers being counseled for minor errors that wouldn't even be noticed anywhere else in the world leads to the perceptions that the pilots have of Australian ATC.
If I was a pilot however my frustration would be at the system not the guy on the other end of the transmission who probably has a supervisor hovering over him/her telling him/her to file on the minor error that the pilot made.
That post sums up the whole situation perfectly in my mind. Where is the accountability of the managers for creating a a healthy safety culture? There is none. You can have an ex- banker or accountant or lawyer at the top driving the entire feel/ culture of the place by recruiting like minded senior managers and there is no accountability whatsoever. If they had to sit six monthly ' management sims' where they had to respond appropriately to different situations they'd fail miserably.
And how could they understand? The closest they have come to a life and death ' code brown' moment is when the made an error of judgement in a foreign currency exchange deal, yet they are the ones admonishing the controllers and setting the tone. If they found themselves first on the scene at a car accident they'd be as much use as tits on a bull.