CASA's motivation could range from making an example in an endeavour to prevent others from acting irresponsibly (sometimes commendable if done right) to downright nasty vindictive meting out of punishment - simply because they can. All in the name of safety of course.
But how do the legal eagles define 'reckless' - as in the rule and penalty quoted above?
Surely 'reckless' is subjective. If I tried to lap Phillip Island at 200 kph on my motorbike that would definitely be reckless. But if Casey Stoner did the same thing it would be a non event. On the other hand if I shot an approach to Cat One minima in an IFR multi that I was current on, it would unlikely be considered reckless, but if a non IFR PPL tried the same stunt in his basic single, which just happened to have an old Narco VHF nav, they could trot out this reckless charge on top of a bunch of other breaches.
As well as being potentially still under the influence, or possibly hung over, our man in the two stroke rag wing is alleged to have been no longer certified (by virtue of his BFR being overdue) and therefore would not have had liability insurance cover which every current member of RA Aus enjoys. In such circumstances carrying a passenger would surely be defined as 'reckless'.
Add the obvious inability to glide to land in the event of an engine failure and one can see where CASA will be coming from with this case.