I don't know if you can get them over there, but when I bought my coupe and needed to transfer it into my name (which requires a certificate of roadworthiness over here) I needed dirt cheap tyres to put on there as I wasn't close to the brake upgrade and 13in rims going on.

I bought a set of hero tyres - which are essentially el cheapo chinese made ones, and they were dirt cheap - I can't recall how much, but cheaper than any alternative by about $15 per tyre. I planned to leave them on for a few months tops, but was so surprised at the grip level (in the dry at least. they are 'ok' in the wet, but there's not a big warning when they are on the edge and about to let go, I tested them on some multilane empty roundabouts in the wet in the middle of the night near where I live) Driven 'normally' I just can't fault them, I've put about 20,000km on them so far, and based on this (and I've pushed them about 25% of the total drive time on average) I think I might get around 50,000-60,000km out of them, probably more if I drove it normally all the time.

http://www.chapelcornertyres.com.au/hero.html

http://www.chapelcornertyres.com.au/files/DataHR558.pdf

are the ones. I didn't actually buy them from there (I got em from Bob Jane in Essendon)

I've done some semi regular runs out of melbourne averaging 120-130km/h (must've been in NT, when i did that, where it is legal) and they have no trouble whatsoever with those sort of sustained speeds. I _do_ run them around the peak listed pressure for max loads - 36psi or so. They are definitely better at 36 in the wet than 26 (yes I tried a few presssures just to see) which makes sense, but I tried it anyway. I'd frankly be tempted to try even higher pressures but I think it'd start to wear out hte centre of the tread sooner than the rest.