Neville, your post sort of says we are a bit slow here and it takes us time to get experience, we don't have the exposure of international pilots .
So wait for us or pick us because we are less exposed, and it is our right and we know better than "them".
I actually believe if 457's in Pilots (not aviation) were standard for all airlines in Australia, aviation in Australia would be a better place. Seniority and rights never out way top person for the job, our government(s) of many years now are prop of that - we have for some leaders now CP's Career Politicians find them on CPRuNe, sadly no rewind button on that mob.
We are not slow we just have a deep labour market relative to the jobs on offer hence the higher total time requirements to be competitive.
The issue is now, as shown by the Skywest exercise, is that the regulator seems to view time on type in isolation. Hence you have the situation where someone comes from a country where jobs are easy to get with say 500 total time and walks into an airline because 300 of that is on type. Meanwhile Australians have no access to that experience. Your average pilot in Australia is not going to be let near a big turboprop with a few hundred hours.
If we do as you say and allow foreigners in it will subsequently destroy flying training and GA in this country as people just won't learn to fly if the chance of getting an airline job is so slim