The iPhone 3.0 SDK is available for free from Apple's Developer Connection. I just downloaded it this afternoon.
It's free if you don't want to put the program on an iPhone. Good place to start though. If you have one person with the paid SDK you can send your code to them and have them compile and submit it to the app store without having to pay a second time.
on the same lines does anyone that how it is possible for a developer to be able to do everything from downloading the development kit to creating provisioning profiles and certificates, binary and uploading it without being able to access the contracts/sales/finance report?
You might be able to do it if you have the corporate version of the developer license. I don't know for sure though.