I agree with this, although I live in one of the smaller Australian cities and cannot move for various reasons. I am desperately trying to find a reasonable programming job, but having quite a hard time. Pretty much all the jobs around here are IT department style, with long winded garble on job boards, and silly requirements about - just from memory, I've seen things like "must be familiar with at least one of C, C++, Java, XML" (Apparently XML is a general purpose language) or "Knowledge of C++ or Delphi required" (What these two have in common I'll never know). I'm sure such ads exist in other places as well, but there seem to be an unnervingly high proportion around here.

I'm not sure what it's like in Sydney or Melbourne, however. Perhaps it's better there...