First off, I wouldn't lose any sleep over foreign pilots in Oz. As there is a shortage of pilots almost everywhere else in the world, too, I wouldn't expect a stampede, at most a trickle. Secondly, there are hundreds, if not thousands of Oz pilots flying all over the world. A bit of reciprocation is fair play, and think about what would happen here if they all came back. There would be no jobs for new hires for years... Piloting is an international career and protectionism would not be beneficial...
BUT
The shortage in OZ is not just a shortage of pilots (if it is that, at all). It is a shortage of training infrastructure. This may be a worldwide phenomenon, in fact. Airlines buy planes by the dozen, but the number of simulators does not keep pace. For example, Cobham (Qantaslink) operates the B717. They have 20 aircraft and exactly one simulator in Australia ... that is shared with Hawaiian Airlines. (Here is a list of the sims in Oz:
https://www.casa.gov.au/licences-and...aining-devices )
Typing a pilot takes days or even weeks of sim time in 4 hour blocks. Meanwhile, the airline must do recurrent training for its current pilots, as well as upgrades. Each sim session requires a training captain and possibly a check captain. So there is a big -- non-revenue generating -- resource commitment.
From a casual scan of the web, it looks like Qantaslink's Dash-8 operation has 31 Q-400's, and 19 DHC-8-200/300s and about 380 pilots. That's less than 5 crews per plane, which is pretty thin. There only appears to be one Q-400 sim facility for those 31 planes and almost 400 pilots. While the check and training pilots are spending weeks in that facility training new hires, they are not available for recurrent training, upgrade training, or flying the line, so I'm guessing they are down to about 4 crews per plane who are actually available to fly at any given time. Perhaps someone on the inside there could clarify. To me it looks like a skeleton crew for an RPT op.
The training and check captains also happen to be prime targets for recruitment by other airlines. When they pull chocks the airline's training department resources are spread even thinner.
Edit: My bet would be that they would be looking for training captains to come and help with the training surge, not entry level FO's or even plain vanilla line captains. Like this job, for example:
https://qantas.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com...uctor_R36134-1
Hiring foreign pilots in Oz on temporary work visas who are already rated in the aircraft would save weeks of sim time and months of training costs. Just a ride or two for currency and type conversion, then line training.
So, what's an aspiring CPL pilot with resumé in hand to do, eh?
Well... Taking Qantaslink and their DHC-8s as an example ... if I was a young buck looking to get a leg up in OZ, I would be looking at Spice Jet (
Careers | SpiceJet Airlines), JetStar NZ (
https://www.jetstar.com/au/en/career...ealand/1357905), Air NZ (
https://careers.airnz.co.nz/jobdetai...irlines,000007) or some other foreign carrier who operates the same type as my target Oz carrier. You rock up typed and experienced on Mascot's doorstep, with international experience and a copy of your training file and they will be hard-pressed not to hire you. ... closer to home: Skippers (
https://www.afap.org.au/pilot-jobs/p...0FLIGHT%20CREW) .