Weather and Terrain
Having flown and trained on both sides of the Tasman, I can agree with the DrKiller. There is not a vast difference in the standards required, but the weather and terrain of your training school's location could be very significant if you're trying to get through quickly. It is difficult to generalise about weather and terrain of a place as big as Aus, but particularly in the early stages of training, you need decent weather, and you're more likely to find that in winter in Queensland than Palmerston North.
Why you would put a flying school on the east coast of a junction between two mountain ranges is beyond me.