"I think Australians would feel the same if Virgin, for example, was going out of its way to find people with the right of abode in Australia to fill SYD based jobs, going overseas and recruiting them, rather than employing local Australians"
Maybe so, because Virgin is an Aussie company.
But if BA had a base over here and chose to staff it with British flight attendants, to accurately portray the company brand, we couldn't really disagree, could we?
At any rate, the QF UK base began as a cost-saving exercise, and the Aussie based recruitment is also more economical given the dedicated recruitment/training teams/facilities in Australia that aren't available in the UK. Utilising all of these methods of cost saving keep ticket prices down and planes full, which is the aim of the game, right?