This is a real Australian thing about "you gotta have thousands of hours before you can fly a turbo prop or jet".
Just go and have a look at Europe, those guys are pissed off if their first job is on a turbo prop, in fact its not uncommon to have a jet command with around 1500hrs total time.
If the training is programmed around the type of operation that they will fly in I'm sure they will perform quite well.
Having said all of that I'm glad I did my 5000 odd hours in GA and gained some very valuable experience along the way.
The airlines really need to look at the crewing issue and this is certainly one of those ways.
Good luck!!