To Mr and Mrs Joe Public, that probably sounds like a good thing i.e. in their thinking small planes shouldn't fly in clouds and be a hazard to themselves and bigger planes unless they have the proper equipment.
And therein lies the heart of what's so wrong about decision-making in Australian aviation regulation.
Let's not make decisions on the basis of objective risks and cost/benefit. Let's do it on the basis of what Mr and Mrs Joe Public feel (especially when we can justify just about anything by scaring the bejesus out of them).
Funny thing is that apparently Mr and Mrs Joe Public don't get asked about how they feel about the exemptions. Or perhaps Mr and Mrs Joe Public are sufficiently sophisticated to understand that - somehow - it's dangerous for airliners and other aircraft to fly around in cloud without ADS-B, but not dangerous for airliners to fly around in cloud with ADS-B unserviceable for a few days.
