The SYD base is crewed by VS crew who have the right to live and work in Australia/New Zealand, all of whom have been VS mainline at one point or another. The DJ secondment is coming to an end, and a 6 month secondment for VS Mainline crew to go to SYD is starting soon.
After this they are looking again at employing local staff, but this is all down to legal working issues in Australia.
VS won't be dropping the HKG-SYD route, it is proving to be one of our best improving routes and very profitable, so when VAustralia starts up they will be concentrating originally on their transpacific routes, but watch this space for PVG/NRT partnerships.