Ugh, that's terrible. When I first did some external units back at Murdoch University in the late 80s, they mailed out the course readers and cassette tapes(!) of the lectures prior to the unit starting!

It really surprises me that an institution like RMIT, which from at least some consideration seems to pretend it's serious, would behave like what you've described. I mean, they're one of the largest and oldest higher education institutions in the country. They should know better.