The reason the ATC guys got away with it and AN folk didn't one controlled the whole workforce the other was just half of a workforce.
Also helps that the Labor government decided to use the Military as scab labour. Then they imported foreign labour. The only way to achieve your goal is to threaten a mass resignation with signatures and we all know how that went last time around.
Basically you have no real industrial options other than resignation unless you want to start a hard core militant union like the MUA or CFMEU. The problem here is that pilots are never going to play that game and aviation as a industry is far to individualistic in its nature so that it will never really work anyway. And even if you somehow manage to organise a tougher union stance the airlines will just go to the world market and start importing labour. Something that doesn't happen to alot of the trades in Australia and hence their ability to run a tough union as they are the ones who control the labour. (and also another reason why your good local tradie does so well. He has no labour competition) Aviation by its nature is international so importing pilots from the rest of the world won't be too difficult.
Just consider for a moment the number of Australians that are working for foreign airlines who would love to come home to a command. That's your competition right there and that's without the government even orchestrating visas. Then following on from them is everyone who has the right to live in Australia. UK, South Africa, Canada, USA. Honestly it wouldn't be very hard to break any aviation labour campaign at all.
The only good news here is that there might be a real global shortage of pilots coming in 10 years or so. The fact that flying training is now prohibitively expensive along with a changing attitude of younger folk and the reality they have seen of how locked in you are as a pilot and how the airlines have destroyed all the career paths in the industry might actually bring about some change but it may not too. The executive will just run the well dry and then go cap in hand to the government complaining.