It's difficult for me to say, because I live in Perth and my hearing is in Brisbane. I appeared at the directions hearing on the telephone and the Judge behaved appallingly towards me (I'm a litigation lawyer and have appeared in court probably 200 times for work, and have never been spoken to like that). My ex had a lawyer who would appear in person and spout all kinds of rubbish (for example he told the Judge that the kids have only met my fiance once - this was ridiculously wrong, but the Judge would not even let me respond).
I engaged a barrister at a point where my ex was trying to get certain things to happen, which I didn't want to happen. I just wanted it listed for hearing. The barrister attended and lo and behold, she didn't get what she wanted and it was listed for hearing. I didn't attend because of the distance factor so I don't know if the Judge behaved better towards the barrister than he has towards me, but based on the outcome of that directions hearing I expect that must be the case.
I was always planning to engage a barrister before the final hearing anyway because I think giving evidence and cross-examining my ex without a barrister would be very difficult. I didn't think it would be necessary for directions hearings, but with the attitude of the judge allocated to my case I felt I had no choice.
Edited to add: I wonder if we are dealing with the same Brisbane judge.