I have just read this ATSB report - good grief. What the hell were they playing at?
I would suggest the following problems not mentioned by the report:
It would seem to me that PF's eyesight was below regulation if he could not see clearly enough and pressed EXPED instead of APPR, and then a few moments later pressed A/THR by mistake. And/or his hand-eye coordination was very poor.
Secondly, PF seemed not to be looking at, nor understanding his PFD, because he pitched forward in response to forward acceleration, believing he was pitching up - a classic rookie pilot mistake. Or maybe poor eyesight again? Reference is made to flight in cloud and lack of an external horizon, and we see this cited fairly often in accidents. We are supposed to be IFR pilots. We rely on and (should) fly by visual reference to our PFD.
Then PF was obviously confused by the auto-thrust lever logic.
It seems to me that PF was not very au fait with the Airbus, and/or was tired or confused as well as having poor eyesight and poor scan. He seemed to be out of his depth when things departed from normal, and could not seem to recover. How was he a Captain?
The cockpit lighting was very low. I have flown with people who do this and don't understand them. Again, we should be flying by our instruments, so having them too dimly lit is dangerous.
Two Captains were flying together and the PM Captain found it hard to speak up or take control - Why? Because of the loss of face? How was the PM a Captain?