The reality of the situation is this is a dysfunctional market. Two employers (QantStar group & Virgin) employ the vast majority of RPT pilots in this country, and expanding (Network aviation & further inevitable consolidation). QantStar have demonstrated they are willing to exploit this market power to the nth degree. This is a classic act of bastardry & exploitation, simply because they can. They will not stop, they have almost absolute power. As we all know, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If you look at the current cadet situation, in effect, a cadet is donating 8 years unpaid, of their lives to a commercial organisation, for commercial gain. You can be sure, QantStar will shove as many fools down this pipeline as they can find. Everyone in the pipeline has an incentive to grossly over-train, it is to their commercial advantage, when the fools are footing the bill. They will flood the market.
These cadets are blinded by an A380 Captains pay packet. The reality is, for them, the best they ever hope to earn is the Air Pilots 2010 pay rates, but even that will be a pipe dream.
There will need to be an enormous amount of pain to the fools, this will happen in time. Unfortunately very few learn through insight, most only respond to the pain stimuli. Many will need to be sacrificed, the pain will need to be widely felt, and very public.
The effect of this cadet pipeline will be to reduce T&C for current low jet time pilots. Unfortunately this will not change as the fools queue up to be slaughtered in the cadet system.
Any pilot applying to the jetstar will in effect be competing against cadets in a reverse auction. Think about that, a cadet with a 200K+ debt and near-instantaneous bankruptcy is bidding against you for work.
Current low time pilots (non-cadets) should consider either cutting their losses and leaving the industry or going to Asia. There are a myriad of opportunities in the resources sector, paying significantly more than they will ever earn in this industry. It will not take you long to recoup your training costs.
What has happened in Europe (cadets bankrupted) & the US (pilots on food stamps) will happen here. It will happen because there is commercial incentive to do so, and a continued willingness by fools to only see the bright lights. Unfortunately for those that have completed a CPL in the last five years, you have been a victim of either bad timing and/or poor industry due diligence. PPRuNe has documented this continuous descent, to those that chose to see it.