Hey pitman, you sound like a lovesick child waiting to go to USyd.
Hope you get in. If not, well... come on over to Flinders. They have decent support like you said.
Anyway, back to topic: Flinders (the only school I know about) is decent like Pitman mentioned. They will also pick you up from the airport, help you find for permanent housing, etc.. They also sent info for financial aid (Stafford, FAFSA stuff, etc.). If you accepted their offer, they also have a nice pre-departure guide which even talks about the culture, Visa stuff, opening bank accounts (before arrival), etc... So you are definitely not totally in the cold.
However, I think some of us have found that the people might be a little laid back. I suspect this is partly the culture in Australia (laid back), and partly because we are the ones leaving our comfortable places to go to a foreign land. Understandably we are the ones who get edgy and annoyed at slower replies.
They, meanwhile, might not see it from our viewpoint, so they will reply normally, without realizing the difficulties in direct communication. As an example, an inquiry for temp housing came back with a terse reply saying that they don't provide temp housing. Great! Now I'm stuck without any suggestions or answers to my 2, 3 and fourth questions... (she only answered my first question... and that was not even a real answer). The provided info seems to indicate that the University Hall is available for temp housing too (my first question was how to apply for that). So, that is one example where I'm here shaking (with fury, anxiety, etc.) and over there, I'm sure people are still sleeping soundly
. Keep that in mind when you deal with them. Then perhaps, you understand why you are all anxious here and they seem to be unbothered by it.