Keg, normally I have a lot of respect for what you put on these forums, but I think you've somewhat missed the boat here.
Trying to tarnish non-Australian pilots with the BA example is terrible reasoning. It's like buying a brand new AMG. When it blows up as you pull out the showroom, would you surmise that every, single AMG ever built must be crap and inferior to other cars? It's called proof by example, and it's bad reasoning.
The reality is, people's minor interactions/experiences and the subsequent perceptions that are built, strongly tend views towards the isolated event but rarely represent the larger reality.
Yes, that BA incident sounds very dubious at best, but if you think it represents the majority of BA pilots or non-Oz pilots you need to reexamine your reasoning.
EVERY airline has a very similar demographic in terms of achiever levels. Nearly every one I've worked for, including yours, has about 50 % who are excellent at what they do. Then there's the 10% who are absolutely exceptional (and it's normally non-technical skills which make this distinction). Then there's about 35% who are okay, but don't really shine. And lastly, there's a small component (say less than 5%) who either really struggle year after year, or who have deliberate non-compliance type tendencies.
To think any Australian airline (including the big Q) doesn't have at least some proportion of these people is pretty naive. I certainly won't judge BA crew on one or two cowboys.
As for the original point of the thread, I get where the Austronaught reputation comes from - but like most, it's generally a few small individuals that wreck it for everyone else.
There most definitely is a small proportion of Australian C&T history (thankfully mostly disappeared now), where ****-swinging rather than safety seemed to be the prime objective. I've seen questions asked which most definitely have no safety or training benefit, and where the only possible motivation for such ridiculous content could have been for old mate to make himself feel good.
Those days are largely behind us, and it will be good when those final few fall off the perch - and the Oz drivers won't be fighting yesterday's war.
As for the comment earlier about the effect of the regulator, I tend to agree. If you have a regulator that prioritises compliance over safety, you might end up with a situation where a) the C&T industry you control tends to follow suit, and b) a lot of the big stick people who aren't suited to airline C&T will end up working for the regulator because it's the only place they can get a job.