Welcome to Europe.
Ryanair and Easyjet (Ryanair in particular) started this nonsense, I guess it was only a matter of time before it started to filter down under.
In the UK under normal circumstances there would be between 250-300 jobs per year for pilots, this is against a nominal figure of roughly 1200 pilots coming out of the sausage factories, so about 900 per year never made it, period. With these "new" schemes it gives these 900 wannabes a glimmer of hope of employment, and most will stop at nothing to sit in the right hand seat. I would imagine this scenario would hit Australia even harder than Europe purely because it is much more difficult to "get into the system" over there, thus making these people even more determined to undertake such "schemes".
The other problem, which is a problem we face over here is the fact that the very people who could make a stand are the pilots within, unfortunately, as with over here is that most of them are sat fat, dumb and happy in their job and this "cancer" doesn't affect them, so they are not willing to stand up against it.
Good luck chaps.