Unlike ASA the RAAF arent left to their own devices when it comes to budgeting, every dollar that comes out of the defence budget, some percentage of that is going to be a hit on ATC units.
As someone previously said, ATC personel has been cut in the last 8 years or so (losing some non control staff) which means greater workload on controllers, more workload at the console and more fatigued controllers.
This adds up to... poorer ATC retention, more training required and less experience at the console.
Corporate knowledge is being lost at a greater rate than recent years because of retention issues....and it doesnt look like getting better any time soon.
There is good news however. If you would agree that the above mentioned are valid points, you can write to your local member, the treasurer and the prime minister (like I have) and protest the current pay deal which has been presented to the members of the ADF. Because as it stands, the problem will get worse if retention gets worse (it will).
You guys seem to forget that the controllers simply have to play the hand they are dealt, they are members of the military, they dont have a union, they have no advocate they are simply a cog in the machine. In order to solve issues of this magnitude you need to solve the problem at its root. We need people to want to stay in the military, get experience and pass that on as best they can to others. At the moment you have people with 12 months experience teaching others to do the job (out of pure necessity).
Write your safety occurence reports, send them in, write to your member and provide evidence of the situation otherwise you are just a bunch of people whinging on a forum just like the rest of the internet.
That is what you need to do in order to even start to fix this problem.
BTW ASA have nowhere near the manning to staff darwin, we barely have enough to staff the jobs we have now, if darwin was to civilianise it would be people walking out on friday in a blue suit and the same people walking in with jeans on saturday, dont kid yourself.