Wages have been kept high by the unions who will have little ability to dictate terms if airlines are nationalised under an emergency rescue plan. Public sympathy won't be forthcoming for "over paid bus drivers who only work twenty hours a week" when millions will be living hand to mouth on welfare. Realistically, if and when we return to work I wouldn't expect to be pulling in much more than about 75% of my previous income for quite a long time.
I'd argue that Unions have actually kept wages down in this country through the seniority system. If you had a true theoretical open market on pilot's labour (which includes no collusion between airlines, or backroom deals between Regionals and major airlines) in the last 10 years then you would have had much higher salaries at Virgin and Jetstar and Rex. The fact that people were going overseas and doubling to tripling their salaries would indicate where the real market was at. Not to mention people moving to the USA to fly for Regionals.
However now without Union interference you would also have a much lower average salary. Especially so if VA go broke then you will have all the ex VA pilots, all the returned expats competing for very few jobs. I would argue that pilot unions have probably dampened the swings in the pure open market salary rather than increased them