titan,
Don't panic mate, I giggle when someone farts, or says penis too
That's brilliant, coming from a bloke called titan uranus. Your pseudonym is about as funny as my Cox/Balls joke anyway.
Moving onto more important things, you bring up an interesting and valid point. There is definitely a generational change underway amongst Australian pilots and yes it is apparent on pprune and elsewhere.
Some of the older generation (those who went through '89, the collapse of AN etc) have in the past 5 years been very keen to secure work back in Australia, whether that be with Virgin/Jetstar/Tiger/V Aus whatever. Many of them did very well overseas, with very nice pay packets, free endorsements and probably a pretty good retirement fund set-up.
Of course they want to spend the twilight of their lives back in Australia (don't we all), their kids probably just starting high school or uni. However, in the process, they were willing to negotiate or accept conditions lower than what they may have previously consider reasonable, simply because they could afford to do so. And who would blame them really?
Enter the new generation, ex-GA, regionals, military whatever. We also want to work in Australia and fly jets, but many are now faced with the prospect of paying for endorsements and much lower terms and conditions. Whilst that has been the general trend of the industry overseas for a while, I can't help but think it has been accelerated here in Australia because of the abundance of ex-foreign pilots keen to get back home.
These days, most young pilots have the choice of which airline to apply to, and we all have mates flying for the competition, who we worked with in a past life. There is no bitterness amongst us about who screwed who in '89, or who was to blame for the collapse of AN. We respect history, but many of us played no part in it.
I believe a unified Australian pilot body will become much easier to achieve as time goes on, once the old guard with long memories have moved on. I just hope by the time it happens it's not too late.