Admittedly that was 10yrs ago so I'm not sure if the landscape has changed since then...
I don't think it has bw, I know of several 172's that can be hired by unknown 60 hour pilots with nothing more than a check flight.
Another point is that the only entity who would consider renting a plane to our "newly-minted PPL" holder with nil hours on his licence, is the flying school he got it from at Archerfield.
Is actually not true.