You can get much, much better fares than that. And coach fares are even less (I’ve seen charter flights to Melbourne for less than $3000 CDN round trip for coach fares.)
TAX INCENTIVES: Australia, like Canada, created some serious tax incentives for the film industry. So in addition to the favorable exchange rate the tax breaks are very persuasive incentives indeed.
The film industry in Oz will likely pick up, since Canada will be phasing out some of its tax incentives and because location costs (at least in Toronto) are skyrocketing. Some municipalities are creating new bylaws that will make it extremely difficult and expensive to bring crews into a location at a reasonable expense.
Aussie crews are excellent and they have very good post-production facilities as well.