Apparently ( and don't shoot the rumour monger if I am wrong - I am relaying what I was told ) some sons of CX pilots who were born and grew up in Hong Kong joined as cadets (or even DESO) but were given housing. If NOT holding the ID and NOT having to move your family overseas is the qualification then these guys certainly don't qualify?
Whereas a guy who grew up in Canada / Aus but is from an originally HKG chinese family - who then joins as cadet and moves to HKG where he has no more immediate family or home - is considered a local purely because his father did him the favour of getting him a HKG ID??
ANd as much as I agree with previous poster that we should all get a payrise - what will happen is that CEP FO's will soon get the $ 12000 ( like Dragon guys get ) in order to shut them up and stop embarrassing the company and everyone else can forget about any increases.
Lesson learned : You only get something if you make enough noise.