I don't know anything about the Melbourne development in question but it was standard practise a few years ago for the Aussie developers to take a new project through Singapore and Hong Kong first before it was offered locally.
By hook or by crook the Singaporeans and Honkies ended up paying substantially more for the units than the locals were asked to pay. It usually meant that only the runt end of the units were left to be marketed to Australian buyers but at least the locals got those units at "market price".
My impression is that these advance sales arrangements for Asian buyers are about as ethical as the set up where the white shoe brigade used to fly WA miners to the Gold Coast for "free" to suck them into buying overpriced rubbish that associates of the real estate companies had bought on the cheap.
More to the point: it does not reflect the actual local market (that is, transactions involving informed buyers and informed sellers).
