I will be at SYD T3 from about 8:30am-9:30am tomorrow. I am seeing off my cousin who stayed with me after being dumped in SYD on what should have been a VA flight OOL-xMEL-ADL. I have her rebooked on a 9:45am QF service. Hopefully I can talk my way in to the QP.
Good luck with it.
As a SG, I managed to get in with my cousin at around 10.30am on a Monday, asked the lady at the desk politely and she let us through. My cousin was flying out of SYD to BNE to start uni and I explained clearly that I knew the rules stated that I had to fly to have access and that it was my cousin flying and not me. She let us through and I found out probably why. The place was almost empty, a few holiday makers and very few business type. Probably because that was the last week of January and the workers were slowly trickling back in? (Or is 10.30am starting to be a little late in the day for business travelers?)