sightboard run, in answer to your question on page 4: (“You put "unqualified" in bold, as if to indicate you thought this more likely than "unwilling". Why? How were these pilots qualified to fly in Australia but not in Europe?”)
I mentioned this because I went to the U.S. to get a US ATR in 1990 and switched to a second school after completing the ground subjects at the first. The Chief Instructor at the first school was not a happy camper when I informed him I wouldn’t be spending some thousands of dollars with him on a (to me, useless) Citation conversion for my licence issue because the second school made me a far better offer using a 737 sim. Rather bitterly, he informed me that the school I was going to had made a fortune over the last six months giving quickie 737 ratings to non-rated pilots who then went to Australia to take up commands with AN and TN.
Please let me stress that I have no way of knowing if what he said was true, but if it was, some – (according to him, quite a number) – of the ‘experienced captains’ from overseas that AN and TN employed were in fact first officers who obtained command ratings on the 737 only immediately before moving to Australia.
If what he said was in fact true, there is no way the Australian companies would not been aware of this unless all these individuals falsified their log books so well that the companies did not pick the fact up, which I find rather hard to accept. This seems incredible, but to lend some credence to it, the story of the American who was accepted by AN even thought he couldn’t furnish them with a log book “because it was classified” it is quite well known, and I understand has been confirmed by pilots within the post 89 AN. (The person said he had flown for the CIA and so couldn’t show them his log book.)
Hope that clarifies my comment.