Hey Shifty,
Only my opinion, but if you intend on going through to CPL, the chances of staying in metropolitan Melbourne are fairly low, and the salary in the first few years may make it very difficult to service a mortgage.
However, I paid for it over the space of roughly 4 years. Got my PPL and then flew sparingly until I had the lump sum saved for CPL/MECIR/FIR plus a meagre allowance for food etc. Whether this was the right way to go about it, I'll never know
j3