There was, and continues to be, considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth at the proposal for strict liability to apply to offences under the new regulations.
I tried to explain that strict liability applies to offences under the old regulations, and was ridiculed from some quarters for pointing out that the sky hadnt fallen in.
For those who did not believe me, I note the Civil Aviation Amendment Regulations 2003 (No. 5), the explanatory statement to which says among other things that:
The purpose of the Regulations is to ensure that the existing offence provisions in the Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 continue to operate in the same manner as they did prior to the application of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (the Criminal Code) to all Commonwealth legislation on 15 December 2001.
The [Civil Aviation Amendment Regulations 2003 (No. 5)]:
specify that an offence is one of strict liability;
separate defences from offences and identify the evidential burden in relation to the defence;
restructure offence provisions to clarify that provisos are elements of the offence;
clarify the physical elements of an offence;
omit general offence provisions;
clarify the actor for an offence;
remove fault elements to attract Criminal Code default fault elements;
clarify the meaning of phrases relating to time period;
substitute more appropriate expressions for less clear ones, to give greater clarity to the offence provision;
omit offence or defence provisions that have equivalent Criminal Code provisions;
introduce numbering for, or renumber, certain provisions;
place or reword the applicable penalty after each offence provision;
provide a definition for "engage in conduct"; and
substitute references to repealed provisions of the Crimes Act 1914 with equivalent Criminal Code provisions.
The Criminal Code harmonisation process has received prior approval of the Office of Regulation Review (ORR). In respect of those amendments that are beyond the harmonisation process, the ORR has determined that they are mechanical and minor in nature, do not have a direct or significant impact on business and do not restrict competition, and therefore a Regulation Impact Statement is not required.
[bolding added]
One also has to wonder why they are going to all this trouble, when the old regulations are soon to be replaced with the shiny new simple harmonised regulations.