Hmm... without trawling back through my calendar, I think I had my initial assessment on the 09/01 or so, had my final appointment on 02/02, and the medical came through on 23/03. What mostly annoyed me was that I already had both a current Class 1 and Class 2 medical! Still had to do the class 3 as a new application though. But yeah, 6-8 weeks is not an unreasonable expectation for the length of time it'll take.
Yep, based in Melbourne... I actually applied once before, back in... 2019? Got to the assessment centre, which in those days was on-site, so we got a bit of a tour around the training facilities, saw the sim setup etc. and got to talk to some current controllers at the lunch break. Not the operational area though.