I think you are probably right Round. On the surface it would seem CAsA is deliberately thinning out the flying training part of the industry by pricing it out of business in favour of the large foreign owned players.
The backbone of training in the old days was the aero club movement and small regional schools scattered around the country. I don't think that was a bad thing as it bought aviation to a far wider community.
We think of training these days from a career path perspective, for sure Commercial training occurred in the past with some schools specialising in that, but by and large the regional aero clubs catered to the private side. The complex raft of CAsA rules has effectively killed off that avenue for people to engage in learning to fly, there are many other things to excite people these days, CAsA has made aviation too complicated and expensive as a hobby except for the die hards.
By comparison, visit a small local airfield in the USA on a weekend. The level of activity is startling, the cost of training about half that of Australia. But then they have sensible rules and the industry is appreciated and valued.
I have no idea of the veracity, but I'm told Foreign pilots training in Australia at the big foreign owned schools, only train to a minimum level under Australian rules and from that point on to their national standard. That sort of makes sense in that professional licences can be obtained in other jurisdictions for about half what they can here.There are American schools advertising here for students. I wonder how many Aussie kids would take up that offer if Government subsidy via HEC's was not available to them.