It's an EASA no can do attitude, sadly - 10% of the study time must be done in the classroom - no way round it.
Nobody is allowed to use video conferencing either - we used to under the UK CAA but when EASA took over it was stopped. The only other way is find an EASA school with a satellite base that is convenient, which will at least cut out the travelling. Not sure who has one in Oz, but we have one in Florida and Amsterdam. Don't think those will help much.