Whistlen Dan...Have to take your story with a few pounds of Salt. If you are getting solid 3's, with the occasional 2 that you have to argue yourself out of, you need to pull your socks up majorly. Stop blaming others for your lack of performance.
I have no horse in your race (neither OZ nor Yank, just a 3rd world grunt), but have come across the odd antipodean "character" in the training dept, but don't think I've ever been graded unfairly. Also flown with with lotsa yanks, some of whom have become friends, and there is a small percentage that need to do some work, or should not be here at all. Fact is, that percentage is probably the same for all nationalities represented here. A little advice for you: Don't believe everything you hear around here, and there is always 3 sides to a story.
CG