I understand the difficulties of gaining permenant residency, as my brother-in-law, who is Canadian applied for it and it would have taken ages to get. In the end, he settled for a work visa, he and my sistet stayed here for 18 months got married and went back to Canada where permenant residency/citizenship is alot easier to obtain.
However, I have a fair few friends who are immigrants from the Republic of Ireland -- Southern Ireland, so they're not part of the UK and so it's harder for them -- all of whom have gained permenant residency.
I do sort of believe what Dragon says i.e. if you're technically an international student, then you should cough up the fees. I don't care how 'globalised' we may be getting, this is Australia and the Government should be looking after Australians and cuting their own citizens some slack before doing the same for Migrants. Its similar to the case only a few years back, when people who migrated to Australia recived concessionsin the form of subsidised housing, government support and help with employment, as well as 'back doors' so to speak to Citizenship. Such schemes should have been offered to Australian Citizens first, families on pensions should have been given the option to subsidised housing and help with employment if they relocated to regional centres, as well as first home buyers, before offering it to people overseas who were rich and really didn't need it to begin with, and would move back into a metropolitan centre as soon as the 5 years were up.
That all said, there certainly are 'special cases', such as dogbacon. The international full fee paying UAI should remain were it is, however, I reckon you should be allowed to enter through Local Entry/HECS. If you have been here since you were 8, and esspecially if you plan on doing something like Education, then it seems to me like you're genuine. Moreso if you plan on teacing in Australia.
Which Uni were you hoping for? Perhaps you could contact them? Or even a place like Wollongong, Mac ect, they seem to be a bit more flexible in reguards to entry. Esspecially Wollongong -- I don't go there, but I'd certainly support the place simply because they actually care about their students and its just a nice place.