Peter,
Here is a quick lowdown on Australian Golf.
Look for books by Paul Daley and Mike Clayton, which have a heavy slant towards Australian golf courses. Paul Daley's "the sandbelt" and Golf Architecture Vol 1 to 6 are excellent.
There are plenty of photo tours of Australian golf courses on here, thegolfforum.com and iseekgolf.com and scott warren's blogs, as well as Darius Oliver's website. Do a search of the forums if you want to get an idea of courses.
There are 4 truly world class courses in Australia that you should play as many times as you can - Barnbougle Dunes, Royal Melbourne West, Lost Farm and Kingston Heath.
As well as Royal Melbourne (east and West) and Kingston Heath, there are half a dozen, or so, courses worth playing on the sandbelt in Mlebourne. None are perfect but all offer some interesting architecture - Victoria, Commonwealth, Woodlands, Peninsula (north and South) Metropolitan.
1.5 hours out of melbourne is the mornington peninsula which has some very good courses (at least as good as the second tier sandbelt courses). The National Old, National Moonah and St Andrews Beach are the pick of the bunch. The Dunes, Moonah Links Legends, and Portsea are also worth playing.
Barwon Heads, 13th Beach and Healesville are also courses worhth playing around melbourne.
Sydney sis a spectacular tourist city but the golf is not great. NSW is a must play although the course is not as good as it should be, the site is spectacular. The Lakes is also very good. Newcastle is 1.5 hours drive nrth and as close to a hidden gem as you will get in Australia.
royal adelaide is (obviously) in Adelaide. IT is worth checking outas it is a wonderfully intimate site but changes made in the last ten years have not been kind. It is not world class. Links Lady Bay, The Grange (east and West) are the next best in town and worth playing if you have the time (top 20-30 in the country) and kooyonga and gleneg are close behind on the next rung.
Perth is a long way from anywhere else in Australia but it is home to lake karrinyup which is, in my opinion, Australia's 5th best course. A very Australian style course too so worth the drive. The rest of perth is a dissapoitnemnt considering the excellent land but Links at Kennedy Bay and Joondalup are interesting.
Queensland has a lot of resort courses, but I cannot offer muc hopinion on them.
That, in a nutshell is Australian golf. My advice would be to read Paul Daley's, Darius Oliver's and Mike Clayton's books, and look through some of the photo threads on here and the other websites I mentioned.