Owning both the FWD and AWD V50's I can say without a doubt the FWD is a far better machine (When RWD is just a pipedream) in pretty much every scenario except loose surfaces.
It's lighter, more responsive and uses something like 10% less fuel, AWD is stoopid in almost all Australian uses.
From Redbook it looks like all manual T5 V50'S prior to 09 were AWD and the only FWD Manual T5 V50's were 09 and 2010 and after that no more manual. So FWD manual V50 T5's in Australia are a rare beast indeed.