Shocking I know! Or is that too difficult a concept for you too? I'm pretty sure most of the flying public feel the same way.
Lover,
I understand "absolute safety" all too well, as a completely unobtainable target, and a totally useless concept in any operational planning, and has no place in rational management.
But, of course, CNS/ATM in Australia has never been rational, nor has the general AsA approach -- or what are just deliberate misconceptions of the possible pumped out to the public by aviation bureaucracies, as to what is achievable.
I recall a so called study, some years ago, conducted by AsA, that found the controller error rate was less than one in 10 to the minus 7, but for professional pilots executing an ATC instruction, the error rate was between 1:1 and 1:2, that is, between 100% and 50% of the time a pilot got a clearance wrong or "procedure" wrong.
It was the AsA people (now retired, I just noticed) who put the study together that were 100% wrong. But, obviously, they believed they had proved that Australia had the worlds most perfect (beyond competent) controllers, and the world's most incompetent pilots --- and it didn't raise a flag??
This was the same mob that put together a US collision risk study that completely neglected the fact that most of the US mid-west is around 5000' or so ft. AMSL ---- all the collisions cited were in circuits, not en-route.
There are parts of the AsA SMS policy that are just daft, not merely conceptual nonsense.
Tootle pip!!