Travelers to Australia - Mobile Phones | Telecom Consumer Discussion Forums

A few people have asked about traveling to Australia and using the mobile phone network here. I have a few suggestions. You can bring your phone here with you but it’s probably just as good to buy one here. You can pick up some cheap phones from most stores and the post office. The same stores should also sell sim cards for those phones. You will need to show them your passport in order to purchase a sim card. 

You can choose which carrier you like as the prices are quite different depending on the things that you need ie. more call time, or Internet usage.

Buying a phone and sim over here can be a lot cheaper than roaming rates which I believe can be quite high.

Vodafone have cheap Sim cards and so do optus. Keep an eye on the call charges as sometimes these can be rather high.