Folks,
The below is from the Friday Australia, it is not about aviation, but it encapsulates, precisely, why any real reform is so bleeding difficult that it is bordering on impossible, and that goes double if aviation is involved.
I am old enough to remember the fight by the then pilots union domestic pilots branches of the APA, AGAINST the fitting of weather radar to Australian airline aircraft, as just one lunatic example. In another thread, recently, the refusal of AVM(Rtd.) Don Bennett to countenance the use of radio navigation aids at BSAA was detailed.
The quote is from William Morris (Billy) Hughes, the "Little Digger", several times Prime Minster of Australia.
- Greg Melleuish
- The Australian
- April 8, 2016 12:00AM
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I recently came across the following observation by former prime minister William Morris Hughes in his book The Case for Labor.
“He clings to his old environment like a limpet to a rock, and regards those daring spirits who depart ever so little from there with hatred, amazement, or contempt … This is not to say that a complete change in man is impossible, only that it is so slow as to pass unnoticed; the adjustment of society to a changing environment is rarely so abrupt as to startle the timid soul of the great majority.
Men at first either ridicule or furiously denounce new ideas; then criticise them, finally accept them, frequently with ingenious excuses or reservations.”
What Hughes identified is the extraordinary conservatism of most people, especially Australians. They are not agile or *innovative but are hostile to almost any change.
Does that strike a chord??
Tootle pip!!