I got knocked back for my first renewal at the Sydney consulate in 2019. They handed me a piece of paper saying I needed to provide proof of educational equivalency to a bachelor degree. After that my visa went to administrative processing. A couple of us have had issues at the Sydney consulate in particular. The officer said "Your company needs to stop sending applicants without this document".
I got the educational equivalency done by one of the approved mobs and emailed it off. Got my visa back two weeks later. It's not a scam, it is occasionally nessesary. I would do anything I can to avoid consulates with known issues though. Never heard of any similar problems at Perth or Melbourne.
bront I probably should have expanded on my experience, particularly with freshy1234's experience popping up. I've done a couple of E3's, different companies each time. Both mine have gone through the Melbourne consulate. Melbourne consulate staff are very laid back, asked me a few questions about the company, I didn't have a degree, this wasn't mentioned but he did ask me about my experience. Word on the street at the time was to stay away from the Sydney consulate due to what freshy said. No one I knew had any issues with Melbourne but I hadn't heard of actual experiences in Sydney until freshy's.