Turbo & Stormy
Yes, the requirements are a bit higher in Cairns, not quite as high as Turbo thinks, but higher than most places. Why? Well, for a start, Cairns is THE most desirable place for a GA pilot to work in Australia while waiting for the Jet job. Climate and scenery make it one of Australia's top tourist destinations (this also means the southern expats can expect cheap airline flights home). The flying weather is challenging at times and you'll get to do mostly ILS approaches, while flying really well maintained and well equipped aircraft. Living is very affordable and probably nearly as cheap as Perth to rent somewhere. Being a major city means everything you're used to in shopping, movies and recreation is there. And Turbo, here's the good bit. ALL operators except one pay the award or higher. Most Cairns operators also operate out of Horn Island in the Straits, again, all operators pay the award except one (different one up there, ask around, someone will tell you the two who don't). OK, so let's summarise this.
1. You get paid the award,
2. You work for really top operators,
3. You fly excellent equipment,
4. you get to live in paradise.
So the downside is this , EVERYONE wants to work there for all or some of these reasons (getting paid properly is a novelty for most) so therefore there is a big queue, nearly as big as QANTAS's queue, so, like QANTAS, with so many wannabes and the need to have the cream of the crop, the bar gets lifted a bit higher than most places just because it can be. Some of the top operators in Cairns are: Skytrans, Hinterland, Cape York Airlines, AeroTropics, G.A.M. (Stewart Aviation YMEN), Barrier, All of these pay the award, there may be some I've missed and the non award have not been mentioned so no clues. SO, get out to the bush, get exploited, get to Darwin or the Kimberley, get some hours and then if you're very lucky you'll end your GA career in YBCS, get to airlines and maybe you'll be lucky enough to get back there with AA. If anyone knows of a better place (with all the 4 pts above) to work in GA australia, then post it and lead the way.