Folks,
The Australian regulations are, unsurprisingly, Australian unique and really quite anal about who can say what about the weather to an aircraft.
Again, unsurprisingly, in Australia the penalties the pilot suffers by acting on "unapproved weather observations" are quite draconian.
Stupid as it sounds, as PIC, it is an offense to act on a report of, say, turbulence from another aircraft, unless the report of the turbulence (or any other met) is preceded by "airep special".
Is there such a word as regulationism?? If there isn't, there should be, this is out of control rampant regulationism.
Look back through previous pprune threads on the matter, this is not just theoretical.
I don't remember all the details, but CASA took action against both a pilot and an aero club instructor, when it was determined that the pilot had rung the club at his destination, asked about the weather, and departed as planned on the basis of the "illegal observation", ie; If the forecast morning fog hadn't cleared as forecast, he wasn't going.
Why make things easy, when you can make them bleeding impossible.
Tootle pip!!