I love the way most pilots believe in Myths, if you think that there are all these jobs in mines on great salaries, try and get one, I have a number of friends that have been trying for years and guess what out of about 15 guys I know trying only 1 has managed to get one, and he wasn't un skilled he was a very skilled paramedic.
In general pilots do earn more than general public across the board, and yes it is a hard slog to get a good pilots job, well at least it was 10 years ago. I am dead against the way airlines now make you pay for your type ratings and interviews etc hence I have never applied to anyone that asks for this.
At the end of the day we do have a good job and we can all live very comfortably on our wages even though a number of muppets have been bringing down airline wages for the last 10 years by attempting to buy there positions, no point getting all cut about that now though the damage has been done just work together to slowly bring conditions back if you can and as pointed out giving the MEDIA everyones salaries in aus is not a very smart move.
for an expat corporate pilot it was very interesting reading though.
I better put my head down and await now!