Lurk R, Unfortunately, I think there are lots of A320 qualified crew/LAMES etc in MEL at the moment who would probably able to start at short notice, providing it doesn't clash with their fortnightly Centrelink visit.
It would be interesting to know what sort of market share SQ believes would be necessary to sustain such an operation. Previously, I had heard that such an operation would achieve half its necessary market solely by picking up existing Star int'l pax who need to be moved around the country though I'd have thought that PER would have had to have been included for this to be the case. Without PER, I doubt the new airline is much use as lots of Star pax need to move across the continent after arriving from Asia etc into PER before moving onto MEL/SYD. ADL probably isn't such an imperative due to its low int'l pax.
The potential / probable loss of NZ from Star is an interesting addition to the mix as this means the new operation would probably be required to operate trans-Tasman from SYD and MEL to link up with UA though I'd assume the ACCC would ensure that SQ-OZ would have no trouble getting slots etc for such a service as part of the horse-trading with QF.
As far as branding is concerned, I'd doubt AN is a goer but, as I've said before, I know the marketing consultancy that did all the Pacific Star work for AN/NZ last year and they haven't been paid so I'm sure they'd happily onsell the results of all their work which included marketing plan, livery etc.