It's not just labour that's half the price in the USA, it's almost everything.
An average house is half the price.
An average car is half the price.
The fuel for the car is half the price.
That is achieved by having 15x more people and a very low minimum wage standards - thereby having a large proportion of the country living in poverty and engaging in crime just to survive.
Since you a self-confessed proponent of reducing Australian population growth, the only other solution is to halve the salary of the LAME's.
I don't consider Australian LAME's to be overpaid, so I guess the point I am getting to is that is the cost of doing anything in Australia.
(BTW your post just prompted me to go to the Mazda USA website to compare the cost of the new Mazda I just bought. Yep, half the price.)