Guava Tree
We know your country,Australia, denies pilot work permits for nationals of all countries (except of course New Zealand) . I suppose that means to say, that all pilots from Canada, USA, France, UK, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela etcetera are all considered average or below average.
That is rubbish. The reality is that there are pilots in Australia from many nationalities including the nationals you mention. I personally know of a number from Canada, the US and the UK and only recently some of the regionals like REX, National Jet and Qantas Link have been actively recruiting out of South Africa because of the chronic pilot shortage in Australia. They even interviewed in some of the Eastern European countries and if there was a surplus of pilots in Asia too, (which there isn’t) they would be recruiting here as well. If you still don’t believe me then I suggest you have a look at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s web sight. The occupation of “Pilot-Aircraft Pilot” is one of the professional occupations that may be nominated under the “Employer Nomination Scheme” and the airlines over the last few years have been using it.
Skilled Occupation List (SOL) and Employer Nomination Scheme Occupation List (ENSOL)
I say the salary of local pilots should always be a bit less than foreign pilots so that in any economic downturn it will also make economic sense to lay off foreign pilots and retain all local pilots.
As for you views on redundancy, all airlines in Australia will lay off pilots in reverse seniority order. It is illegal under the “Anti Discrimination Act” to lay off any employees because off nationality, race, age, sex or religion, period. Your argument that foreigners should be laid off first at HKA is flawed as you could count the locals on one hand. Almost all their pilots come from Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Indonesia and Singapore. I therefore ask you, is it only by chance that in the last year almost all the pilots laid off by HKA have been Caucasian or has it been racially motivated. It certainly hasn’t been to preserve the jobs of locals as there virtually aren’t any.