Australia included? I was actually thinking of perhaps taking up programming next semester at university.
those stuff are almost free anyway and using those stuff will force you to use other microsoft products.
I also have free access to Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista Business 32/64, Visual Studio, MSDN, Expression Web & many others because of this
Nobody forces you to develop in a MS enviroment, but if you find better and so good integrated developer tools, other than Microsoft's, and for free, like VS & co., please let me know (because there isn't)