Wow, I must have been reading the alternative universe copy of Keg's post!
What I read is that he believes Qantas should be employing the best candidate; one who has a reasonable ability to operate an aircraft and is able to comfortably fit into the crew environment in the back seat at first, but have the appropriate skills (physically, psychologically and socially) to become a F/O then Captain. If that person comes from outside the group or inside is irrelevant and those currently inside may not necessarily be ahead of the queue.
Unfortunately it's largely irrelevant as the impression I get is the only thing you'll need to do is impress the HR representative on the panel and/or meet some other non-operational selection criteria. From what I'm hearing, flying and operational ability and aptitude has little to do with a successful application. That's not to say we've employed a bunch of duds in this round. Quite the contrary, we've employed some excellent pilots, but 'skills' other than flying seem to have a higher priority.