Victa I started at a smallish drop zone and did 350 hours a year larger drop zone's in more populated area's and tourist hot spots do many more hours, some of these have a fair few pilots all jockeying for work (I hear pete's parachuting up in the territory crawls with pilots at times).
As for places to get work try the list in the Australian parachute federation web site
http://www.apf.asn.au/ alternatively try a web search, yellow pages.
Pay ? a bone of contention among skydive pilots while most operators are towing the line and paying pilots It's still not good expect around $ 8 to $ 10 a load maybe more in places around, don't bother with operators who don't pay they don't deserve you ! a bar job or night work might be required to get the rent and renewals paid for though.
Lifestyle is good lots of interesting people plenty of eyecandy and interaction with backpackers and people your own age.
Have to agree with most of the comments above you need to keep your own standards, I did become a little imprinted by jump flying and it took 5 hours or so to get back up to commercial standard.
Anything else I can help with drop me a line
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