Mini Ansett
It is true that the output of the flying school will do nothing for the filling of the captains seats for the next 4-5 years. But it will solve the problems of filling the F/O seats at modest pay for years to come..!
You say that, for $10 per ticket, the problems are solved. That would be an additional $15 million per year!!! I don't doubt the willingness of management to charge it to the clients if they could......, but they certainly won't give it to the cockpit crews just like that!!
They (management) could be willing to pay the (30?) key C&T captains an additional $60,000 per year. That expense is only $1.8 million...! Classical devide and conquer tactics. For the other command seats there is the rest of Australia to do a bit of poaching themselves. You'd be surprised what quality would suddenly come out of the woodworks if the pay is OK. It would be relatively easy to keep the airline flying...! Remember Ansett, who lost ALL their pilots overnight? Didn't take them long to get going again....
The key is the 457 visas. There would be thousands of pilots in low wages countries who would love to come to live and fly in Australia for almost any pay! After an initial difficult period the costs of pilots could actually come out lower! It would also reduce inflation as well by keeping the tickets cheaper.
So, I'm not the devils advocate.., just a lot less optimistic than you about the motives that drive managements in general.