Seeing that this thread is fairly old, I dare ask a perhaps silly question.

I have my first ever OZ flights coming up in two weeks’ time, and was wondering about seat selection in J. Looks on Expertflyer like they block the first row, so I am only able to select seats further back. Being used to OneWorld where for instance CX will happily unblock blocked seats for me as a non-CX OWE, will OZ unblock those if I call due to being *G?