That is a very valid point Browndog. I guess the main issue is when health and safety laws and bureaucracy actually become an impingement to safe work practices that it becomes an issue.
There does need to be a realistic, pragmatic balance between risk identification and mitigation and endless paperwork and superficial box ticking. OHS has become a self perpetuating industry in its own right to a degree but just because you've been cutting MDF without a mask for 40 years doesn't make it stupid to start wearing one now.
My forklift training was carried out by an incompetent redneck ******, who while denigrating all of us on how we would never be a forklift driver's arsehole, deliberately went through every answer on the test to make sure we were 100% correct and 100% correctly worded. If it wasn't, he would get us to change it. Skipped the appropriate examination of forklift operation prior to use saying 'if anyone asks, you've done it' and was more concerned with his cup of tea and keeping a job he should have lost long ago than with actually producing competent operators.
Unfortunately this **** is rife and paperwork does little to fix it. More administration fees, more training and tickets required to carry out tasks, same incompetency (or worse) being pushed into the workforce. Not saying all trainers are like that but guiding people, handheld through documentation so they can continue charging big bucks for training in plant and equipment use does my head in. If someone can't do the test on their own, don't pass them.