"Has anyone had anything to do with Uni of Newcastle's program and can comment on the good, the bad and the ugly?"
I'm currently studying via distance education with Uni of Newcastle. I am thoroughly enjoying the course and find the instructors are very helpful and have plenty of relevant experience. The material I am studying is interesting and useful and has relevance to other aspects of life, not just to what happens in the cockpit. I am not a professional pilot but I have worked as aircrew, ground crew and in operations, admin and management, and the course content has been useful in all of those fields (at least I think so anyway). Various employers have also recognised the relevance of the course to their businesses.
The "bad" and "ugly" side amounts to having to deal with assignments and reading after working all day (or night). You need to do a lot of reading and research and that can be hard to do when working full time.
I would recommend the course but you would have to think about whether it suits your needs; everyone is different.
Good luck with it if you choose to undertake any study.