Hi!!!
Casual is great, however permanent would be great, see what happens though, the days off thing is good.
I've been casual for over a year now and when we started were offered a roster for 9 months, so i have only been "casual" since Feb just gone and luckily the hours have been there, thankfully due to EP's (3 day trip from PER) and international training (6 day trip from PER), however due to QF and MAM offering temporary monthly transfers to PER for MEL and SYD casuals, quite a lot PER casuals are unfairly missing out on the hours they'd usually have! Let's see what happens next month!!!!!
Apart from that, as said, casual is great in that you can choose when you want to work. The pay is great if you're working aswell.
It really depends on how much you really want to fly? Casual is the only way into flying now, it is a bit of a risk, but so far it seems to be going ok for most crew.
Good luck
Oz