Jaba
A quote from the Airspace 2000 report
However, in some instances these reforms have been controversial. Aspects of the Airspace 2000 model have been criticized by members of the aviation industry for reducing the safety of air travel in Australia by placing unrealistic expectations upon pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCs)
The above could be translated as: The ATC union, and one of the two pilot unions would not accept change. Poor old Australian pilots and ATC couldn't cope with what was pretty standard in the rest of the first world -- in their opinion.
In fact, Australian pilots seem to cope just fine from the first time they ever leave Australia airspace, and venture into the big wide world.
NAS followed Airspace 2000, and again generated huge resistance from the same sources. The group of pilots (Qantas) who had been flying outside Australia since forever never ever had a problem with either Airspace 2000 or NAS.
Do you remember the "NAS trial" --- it ran for 12 months, and was, in fact a resounding success. When the above mentioned pilot union realised that the trial had not only not failed, but had been a resounding success by every audit measure during that 12 months, as you would expect, because it was only what most of the rest of the world had done for years, strike was threatened.
Ansett was in a very poor state financially at the time, and exerted what I regard as entirely unconscionable pressure on Mick Toller, because of the threatened strike. CASA pulled the plug on NAS as a result.
There was an extensive safety case to justify NAS, that showed it to be more safe ( lower risk) than the existing Australian system, there was never a safety case to revert to the more risky/less safe old system.
There was never a risk/safety case to justify pulling the plug on NAS.
Jaba, I was in the middle of this for years, I know exactly what happened and why.
Tootle pip!!