Just my 2 cents!
Having been through the ‘self training’ path and also worked at Rex I thought I’d chip in.
I did my own self studied CPL (200hrs) and then went job hunting. Took me a whole year before I managed to find a flying job. In the meantime I was stacking shelves at Woolworths to get by. Part of the problem was my lack of confidence to get out there after getting a few No! answers. I would imagine having been a relatively recent arrival in Aus you won’t have any contacts in aviation (just like I didn’t). It will be totally dependent on your ability to get out and knock on doors over and over again to get that first job.
Later on in my career I joined Rex as a DEC (cutting in over the cadets as someone else mentioned). Having been a sceptic myself about cadet schemes in general, I will now happily recommend the Rex scheme to anyone thinking about it. I can’t speak for the AAPA side of things (but heard no real complaints), however the finished product as a line trained f/o is good. Not experienced by any means but everyone I encountered had a good attitude and ability to learn quickly. Despite all the negative things about Rex on Pprune and whatever management will throw at you if you work there, they DO WANT TO UPGRADE YOU. The sustainability of their business depends on upgrading cadets to Captains eventually. If you can get in, I would take the Rex Cadetship over self funded training every time.
To put the 7 year bond into perspective: I did my CPL in 2004, Dash 8 f/o 2010, upgrade to Captain late 2010. I think most pilots on Pprune would have a similar 5-6 year timeframe to get in the LHS of a turboprop. When I left Rex f/o’s were upgrading around the 4 year mark.
As for your age, I wouldn’t worry to much. My groundschool was mainly made up of people that had done something previously (uni plus a few years in a different career).