What was happening is that the public were getting a wrong impression regarding the safety of 'Ultralights' as accident reporting news outlets nearly always refered to the aircraft as an ultralight just because it was registered with the Ausralian "Ultralight' Federation but was in no way ultra light. An ultralight originally, was an aircraft weighing no more than 300 kilos all up weight including the pilot. As the industry expanded and the weight increased, Recreational Flying was a better name and we were able to get rid of the stigma of "Oh no, not another of those damn ultralights."
Whilst I am in favour of the changes and the way we have expanded, I believe that we could have kept the AUF as a subsidiary of the new RaAus and had the best of both worlds so to speak, all within one controlling body.
Just my thoughts.
Alan.