I agree with you completely A-squared. The airlines need to, and must, start paying decent wages that reflect the responsibility of the position and the high cost of training.
I seriously think though, there will be very very few Australians that qualify, in terms of meeting the hours requirements and also having a college degree to meet the visa requirement. College / university is just not a big deal down under, there is only a couple of universities with flying related training courses, most pilots don't have degrees therefore won't meet the visa requirement.
What you really want to be scared of though, is your countrymen like
these a-holes finding some way to cut a deal to get their hordes of European/Indian/Asian pay-to-fly muppets, into the right seat of US regionals.