Weird Australian Trend
From the days I used to study in Australia, I've always found it a strange place for wages. Wages for semi skilled and unskilled workers are among the highest in the world. I know people in call centres who can earn over $60k a year. A lot of my friends who graduated from uni and took up graduate jobs ended up taking an effective pay cut from the temporary jobs they used to hold when at uni.
To see that an FO with Rex can have a base pay of $46k considering a grad fresh out of uni with a liberal arts degree can get at least 10% more, is weird, to say the least.
In the rest of the world, the competition for skilled labour is tough and there is an oversupply of unskilled labour - resulting in skilled labour wages going through the roof and unskilled labour wages stagnating or declining.
In Australia though - it seems that the opposite is true. Good for equality and egalitarianism I suppose!