Howdy Paul! (We really don't say Howdy in Texas, but it's good for tourism to promote it
)
Look in the armor and Diorama topics here and I think you'll find all the help you could ask for and more! A real friendly group here who wil do all they can to get you going inthe right direction.
There's a topic in the General discussion for Aussie Modelers and it would be a good place to talk to some people down under, especially if you're looking for a hard to find part and such... who knows you might even meet a neighbor!
here it is:
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11142