Take a look at Geoff's own profile on this website. He is referred to as the "go to man" in aviation, yeah right!
Comparing average employee salaries between airlines like Qantas and Emirates et al is like comparing apples and oranges. If you want a true reflection of the relative costs split and compare pilots with pilots, engineers to engineers, cabin crew against cabin crew, ground handling staff to ground handling staff. Then a true picture will be formed.
I bet that most skilled employees costs/overall packages (especially the pilots) will be very similar to their overseas colleagues.