Supply vs Demand
Still in touch with enough GA operators to know there are significantly less resumes appearing on the desk than 2, 5 or 10 years ago. Can you jump in to any C210 with a bare CPL and 200 hours and expect to be matching 10 year IT salaries? Of course not! But the pay and conditions are about what you'd expect for an entry level helpdesk job.
Is there a demand for 3000hr pilots on twin engine turboprops? Absolutely! And the pay is about what you'd expect for a CCNA/MCSE with a few years experience (ie completely dependent on the company and what you're able to negotiate, just like IT, some companies think your MCSE is worth $38k and pair you with someone else with an MCSE but worked for them for longer, some think it's worth $110k and give you complete control).
At the end of the day people work for what they think they are worth. Most of the pilots I know tend to migrate towards larger companies and let the company tell them what they think they are worth. Most people I know in IT have a good idea of what's around and stay where ever they are happiest. Most of your bargaining power with salary comes when you first walk in the door. I've seen IT guys jump from contract to contract negotiating $10k extra each time they change jobs, while others with a better skill set stay in the same company and only manage to negotiate $2-3k a year. I've seen a number of pilots on cabin class piston twins take a $10k pay cut to move back to the east coast on turboprops "I just want to be close to family", only to see pilots with the same hours move to the exact same city with a jet job 2 months later taking a $10k payrise as an SO, some have stayed on another six months and got an FO job (again, same city!) with a $40k payrise.
There's no secrets in Aviation, there's more than a few threads on pprune with first year base salaries for pretty much every company in Australia operating anything with a turbine. After you've put in the hard yards and ticked all the boxes, if you think you're worth $40k back on the east coast, thats the job you'll accept, if you think you're worth $90k and wait until that job comes up, that's what you'll get. If people stop signing up for $40k, that particular operator is either going to have to cut routes or start paying more (or most likely, a combination of both).
At the end of the day the "average pilot" is going to stop things spiralling out of control in either direction - not everyone is going to sit and wait for Qantas to start employing again, not everyone is going to jump at the first turboprop job offering $40k. Congratulations guys, you now realise collectively you have complete control over your salary.