They're high but not enormously so, IME if you're in Sydney or Melbourne and are competent you can be making $110k+ with 5 years experience. Even more if you're skilled in something that's in demand (data science and DevOps ATM).
From what I've seen I actually think we are lucky to have the highest dev salaries outside of the US. Which is kind of suprisingly in a way, because we don't have too many large internet companies headquartered here and the startup scene isn't huge.
Possibly because Australians can get an E-3 visa easily? That would mean AU salaries would have to rise to stop them simply jumping on the next plane to S.F.
Hmm, maybe.. but anecdotally there's not too many Australians who want to pick up their lives and move to the states. I would guess the majority of devs here wouldn't know about the E-3 visa in fact.
