You might have to look for fares outside of Australia, for example EK has J fares KUL-DXB-<much of Europe> for $3K much of the time, then you just need a separate ticket Oz-KUL which would be under $1K in Y. Rather ironically QF sometimes has ex-SIN fares that are much cheaper, too. Finally QF treats July as peak season for pricing while some other airlines don't (try the chinese ones, for example, such as china eastern and china southern). Your upgrade chances on QF are very small with no status as QF funnels all pax through LHR or FRA so on the same plane; I'd say <1% chance.