The figures I've heard for last financial year were around 4500 applicants and 75 to 80 successfully rated. They've made the selection harder in the hope they have a better quality of trainee. I'm not so sure that's working, since they let me in
Training is about 12 months for enroute and 10 months for tower.
Unofficially, success rate for enroute is about 60% and 75% for tower.
There seems to be a shortage of people opting for tower because they're worried they're going to get posted to Alice Springs, Broome, or Karratha. Alice is unlikely for ab initios because it's too quiet to get rated, and the other two have rental subsidies which are worth more than your annual pay, and you'd only spend two years there anyway.
Most of us on course are worried we're going to be posted to Bankstown or Sydney, because no-one in their right mind wants to live there
but we've been told at least one person from each course will end up there because they're so short of controllers.
You can also pretty much rule out Hamilton Island, Gold Coast, Coffs, both of the Tassie towers, Avalon and probably Maroochydore as initial postings. They're either too quiet for you to get rated, or the older controllers coming up for retirement want to finish their careers there and they have priority (or long knives that would end up in the back of any ab-initio that got a plumb posting
)