From what I understand, USyd lost the ability to accept Stafford loans because it did not meet the rather onerous critieria by the US federal govt for accepting them (specifically, the stipulation that a certain percentage of ALL its takers pass the USMLE Step 1, rather than simply its int'l students, or American students -- there's a discussion of this in this thread: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/university-of-sydney-no-longer-accepts-us-finaid.1076515/). Then again, someone posted here or on pagingdr not long ago that it has regained that ability, but if not, then I'm not sure if what's going on there is a result of any administrative "choice". At any rate, there have never been a lot of American students here, at least compared to the Asians and Canadians (e.g., only 85, less than 1 in 7, of the int'ls commencing in 2012 were American, and a large chunk of that would be at UQ -- maybe some schools have decided that UQ has 'cornered' the market with Ochsner and don't want the headache of ensuring suitably high USMLE pass rates, who knows).
My reasoning on UWA/WA internship would be similar to how I broke down the numbers on the east coast -- from the MTRP. The state used to promise all its grads an internship, but I don't now if that's still in play (it certainly promises its domestic students internship, as all states do).
I hate to ask someone to speculate, but @pitman what do you think are the chances of UQ retaining its US loan eligibility of dual citizens? Additionally, if it turns out to be accurate that USyd no longer can take US loans, then what are the options for those students who were receiving them? Are they grandfathered through?